View allAll Photos Tagged c1912
© All Rights Reserved
( Set of 2 .....please view the previous image for view of the building this clock tower rests upon )
THE VANCOUVER BLOCK
Canadian Historic Building
736 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC Canada
c. 1910-1912 (103 years old)
Vancouver Block is one of Vancouver’s most distinctive landmarks.
This 15 storey Edwardian Commercial building is topped by a large neon illuminated clock tower and finished in white ornamental terra cotta.
Built by Domenic Burns and designed by the prolific architectural firm of Parr & Fee.
Constructed between 1910 and 1912 on the highest point of land in downtown Vancouver, the building is valued as an example of the city’s pre-war economic expansion and building boom.
The building is currently owned by Equitable Real Estate.
(Please note** All information has been taken from various online sources and has not been verified to be accurate)
Gothic Revival faux-castle mansion complex was built 1911-14 by E. J. Lennox for Sir Henry Pellatt
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma
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Nikon D50 + Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor ED 55-200mm 1:4-5.6G
www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond50
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_D50
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_AF-S_DX_Zoom-Nikkor_55-200mm_...
www.imaging-resource.com/lenses/nikon/55-200mm-f4-5.6g-ed...
DSC_0149 Anx2 Q90 1024wh 5k f25 f50 f70 f100 exp
Source: Digital image.
Album: WIL04.
Date: c1910.
Photographer: William Hooper.
HOOPER COLLECTION COPYRIGHT P.A. Williams.
Repository: From the collection of Mr P. Williams.
Local Studies at Swindon Central Library.
Source: Scan of a photograph from our image collection.
Image: P30377.
Date: c1912.
Photographer: William Hooper.
HOOPER COLLECTION © P.A. WILLIAMS.
Used by very kind permission.
Repository: Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
Cley windmill wаs built іn the early 19th century.
It is а five storey tower mill with а stage at second floor level, twenty feet above ground. It has а dome shaped cap with а gallery which was winded by an eight-bladed fantail, 10ft. 6ins. in diameter. The cap is now fixed and unable to turn into the wind. There are four double Patent sails with а span of 70ft., carried on stocks 56ft. long. The inner pair have eight bays of three shutters and the outer pair have nine bays of two shutters and one of three shutters. In 1819 the sails powered two pairs of French burr millstones, а flour mill and jumper but by 1876 this had been increased to 3 pairs of stones and а smut machine had been added. The mill worked until c1912. In 1921 the mill was converted to holiday accommodation. On 31st January. 1953, the mill was flooded to а depth of at least 8ft. during the North Sea tidal surge that caused loss of life and damage all along the UK east coast and Holland.
The windmill is now a hotel and restaurant and an extensive programme of renovation and maintenance has taken place since 2007 onwards.
Cley mill is now a Grade II* listed building which was first listed on 20th. February 1952 and last amended on 30th. September 1987.
Signature appendage seems to be broken off
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Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor ED 55-200mm 1:4-5.6G
DSC_0146 Anx2 Q90
Taken from a print in my collection, no further details known.
NSR class G, built at Stoke entering service in 191-. LMS 595 after the 1923 amalgamation. Renumbered 5410 in 1927 and withdrawn April 1929. Thee is a possibility the first LMS number was not carried.
Cley Windmill itself іs а five storey tower mill that has а stage аt second floor level, twenty feet above ground. Іt has а dome shaped cap with а gallery, which was winded by an eight-bladed fantail, ten feet six inches in diameter. The cap іs now fixed and unable to turn to wind. There are four double Patent sails with а span of 70 ft., carried on stocks 56ft long.
Іt was worked by the Burroughs family until c1912, when the business was transferred to their other windmill аt Holt. In 1921, the windmill was sold by the Burroughs Brothers to Mrs Sarah Maria Wilson for the sum of £350. It was converted to а holiday home and the architect responsible for the conversion was Cecil Upcher. The machinery was removed; the gear wheels were cut in half and used as decoration within the mill.
The mill was inherited by Lt Col Hubert Blount, in 1934. During the Second World War Col. Hubert Blount's aunt, Sister Rachael, lived at the mill and along with fellow nun Sister Catherine, both worked within the local community. The Duchess of Bedford often visited the nuns at the mill until she was lost at sea whilst flying her own aircraft.
Unfortunately during the terrible floods that affected the Norfolk coast so badly on 31 January 1953, the mill was flooded to а depth of аt least 8ft.
© All Rights Reserved
VANCOUVER BLOCK
Canadian Historic Building
c. 1910-1912 (103 years old)
736 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC Canada
Vancouver Block is one of Vancouver’s most distinctive landmarks.
This 15 storey Edwardian Commercial building is topped by a large neon illuminated clock tower and finished in white ornamental terra cotta.
(In my previous two photos, you will be able to see the clock tower in the distance)
Built by Domenic Burns and designed by the prolific architectural firm of Parr & Fee.
Constructed between 1910 and 1912 on the highest point of land in downtown Vancouver, the building is valued as an example of the city’s pre-war economic expansion and building boom.
The building is currently owned by Equitable Real Estate.
(Please note** All information has been taken from various online sources and has not been verified to be accurate)
This swing bridge, a replica of the original built in approximately 1912, was officially opened by Cr I M Bond, Deputy Chairman District Council of Ridley on 18 December 1922. A Black Hill Bicentennial Project.
Black Hill was first settled in 1890. The township is situated some 110 kms north east of Adelaide, nestled in a valley on the River Marne, between the Mount Lofty Ranges and the Murray River.
Black Hill, which was named FRIEDENSTHAL (Valley of Peace) prior to World War One, was first owned as a station by Thomas R Reynolds. In 1891, this land was subdivided and purchased by families, many of whom still have descendants living at Black Hill today.
The name Black Hill was derived from the native pines on the granite hill, as these trees together with the black granite accentuated the hills for many miles.
Black Hill has two commercial granite quarries that have been used in significant buildings – one splendid example of Black Hill granite is the Anzac Centenary Wall in Kintore Avenue, Adelaide.
Very few places in South Australia can match the superb spread of eucalypts along the Marne Valley.
Howard Smith Wharves:
The Howard Smith Wharves were constructed 1934-early 1940s by the Queensland government to provide relief work during the depression years of the 1930s. Initially known as the Brisbane Central Wharves, the project was undertaken in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of the Forgan-Smith government's principal employment-generating projects. Like other such schemes, the Brisbane Central Wharves not only provided employment, but established important infrastructure for Queensland's future development. Brisbane Central Wharves were leased by the Australian coastal shipping company Howard Smith Co. Ltd from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, and are more usually referred to as the Howard Smith Wharves.
The site had an even earlier connection with Howard Smith, as the Brisbane Central Wharves replaced smaller wharves constructed in the early years of the 20th century by Brisbane Wharves Ltd, for lease by William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd].
The construction of wharves beyond Circular Quay was part of the gradual move downstream of port facilities at Brisbane, in a process which began in the 1840s. Following the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in 1842, commercial wharf facilities were erected at South Brisbane, which offered more direct access for Darling Downs and Ipswich commodities than the north bank of the river where the government wharf [Queen's Wharf] was located. By 1850 there were 5 commercial wharves on the south side of the Brisbane River.
However, following the declaration of Brisbane as a port of entry in 1846, a customs house was built in Queen Street near the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, on the north side of the river at Petrie Bight. From this time, the Town Reach rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. In the late 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between Petrie Bight and Alice Street, near the botanic gardens. To encourage private business activity the colonial government and Brisbane Municipal Council also built wharves along Petrie Bight in the 1870s and leased them to shipping companies. By 1900 the Brisbane Municipal Council owned a string of wharves from the custom's house to Boundary Street.
Private companies constructed wharves further downstream at New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead from the early 1900s. In the 1920s-30s the government built railway wharves at Pinkenba, branch rail lines to Teneriffe and Hamilton, and the state cold stores and reinforced concrete wharves at Hamilton. After the Story Bridge was opened in 1940 most large overseas and interstate vessels did not use the wharves at the Town Reach. Hamilton became the heart of Brisbane's port, and the part of the river from the South Brisbane Reach, round the Town Reach to Petrie Bight lost the ascendancy it had around the turn of the century. Since the 1960s, most of Brisbane's port activity has relocated to the mouth of the river.
In the 1880s William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd] leased the Commercial Wharf on the Town Reach from the Brisbane Municipal Council. Howard Smith was one of several important shipping companies which traded on the Australian coast from the mid-19th century, and was one of the earliest. The business was established in Melbourne in 1854 by Captain William Howard Smith, and in the second half of the 19th century developed as one of the dominant companies in the Australian coastal shipping trade. Initially the firm traded between Melbourne and England, but in 1860 entered the inter-colonial trade, and from 1864 concentrated solely on this. Howard Smith was trading in central Queensland by the early 1870s, and in the 1880s extended its operations to northern Queensland. In the 1890s, the firm entered into a strong rivalry with other coastal shipping companies for the lucrative intra- and inter-colonial passenger trade.
In the late 1890s, Howard Smith moved downstream from the Commercial Wharves to the Brisbane City Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie Bight, and in the early years of the 20th century leased adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs. These wharves were extended c1912 and in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government and rebuilt as the Brisbane Central Wharves.
The resumption and rebuilding of the Brisbane Central Wharves was an adjunct to the construction of the Story Bridge between Kangaroo Point and Fortitude Valley. As part of the bridge project the state government had resolved to improve the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, by widening it to a uniform width of 800 feet (240 m), deepening the draught to about 26 feet (8 m), and improving the river approaches. This necessitated demolishing the existing wharves and sheds at the Brisbane Central Wharves, excavating the cliff below Bowen Terrace, and widening the river at this point by up to 70 feet (21 metres). The path of the river was cut back and made smoother. Three chords were planned around the bend in the river, each providing a berth of about 500 feet (152 m). The total work, described in the 1935 Annual Report of the Bureau of Industry (the government body in charge of the project), was estimated to cost in excess of £400,000.
Work on the scheme commenced in 1934 and continued into the early 1940s. In January 1935 the existing wharf facilities occupied by Howard Smith Co. Ltd were resumed, along with a disused wharf upstream owned by the Brisbane City Council. The construction of the wharves was undertaken using day labour, and was staged over several years so that port activity could continue.
The first of the new structures erected was a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building completed by 1936 as offices for Howard Smith Co. Ltd. It was located on the waterfront, and commanded excellent views of the Town and Shafton Reaches of the Brisbane River.
Three berths with five new storage sheds were planned. Each of the gabled sheds was constructed primarily of hardwood timber, and sheeted and roofed with timber boards and corrugated iron. Sliding doors within these sheds opened towards the river for the handling of cargo. Sheds nos.1-3 were located at the upper berth under the Story Bridge, the middle berth accommodated the large no.4 shed [double-gabled , twice as wide as the others, and much longer], and no.5 shed was located at the lower berth downstream. No.5 shed was the first to be erected and a temporary wharf constructed. The middle berth with no.4 shed was almost completed by 1937, then work commenced on the upper berth, which was to contain sheds 1-3. This was completed in 1939.
For the wharves, a reinforced concrete base was laid on the rock at the river's edge, with timber piles rammed into the riverbed. Large hardwood timbers were used for the walings and decking, which extended about 24 feet (8 metres) out over the river. Hundreds of thousands of feet of timber - mostly hardwoods such as ironbark, blue gum, yellow stringybark, spotted gum and messmate - were required to build the berths.
The road widening behind the sheds, which necessitated the cutting back of the New Farm cliffs, was completed by 1938.
As work continued on the lower berth into 1940, the Second World War intervened. By 1942 the men working on the Petrie Bight works were transferred to other projects more directly connected with the war effort, and work on the wharves was closed down. The third berth appears never to have been completed. A 1945 plan of the site shows the upper and middle berths complete but the lower berth still without any timber decking for wharfage.
In 1941-42 the Brisbane City Council constructed five air-raid shelters near the Howard Smith Wharves below the cliff face, for the Bureau of Industry. The threat of invasion by Japan appeared very real at the time, there was a substantial workforce employed at the wharves, and the site was located adjacent to the Story Bridge - a prime target in wartime. Three of the shelters were the usual 'pillbox' style built by the City Council at many places in the inner city and in the suburbs. This was a standard type, rectangular in plan and constructed of concrete. However, the other two shelters at the Howard Smith Wharves were constructed of large stormwater pipes with multiple entrances. The Brisbane City Council used concrete stormwater pipes to cover the slit trenches in the Botanic Gardens and Victoria Park, but no other air raid shelters of the 'pipe' type have been identified in Brisbane. It is not known why the two different types of shelters were constructed at the Howard Smith Wharves.
Howard Smith signed a 21 year lease over the Brisbane Central Wharves site in 1936. After this lease expired the company made the inevitable move in the early 1960s to better facilities downstream at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Water Police then occupied part of the site [the office building and several sheds], and Queensland Works Department has used the site for storage for many years. Vehicles impounded by the police were stored here as well.
A large part of the timber decking from both the upper and middle berths was washed away during the 1974 floods.
Most of the wharves which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the central city have been demolished in the riverside re-developments of the last 20 years. The former Howard Smith Wharves remain one of the few surviving, and the most intact, with office, sheds and wharfage.
Story Bridge:
This steel and concrete cantilevered bridge was constructed between 1935 and 1940 by contractors Evans Deakin-Hornibrook for the Queensland Government.
As early as January 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council's Cross River Commission had recommended the construction of a bridge at Kangaroo Point. Due to sectarian interests and prohibitive costs, however, the council chose instead to erect the Grey Street Bridge in 1929 -1932.
In 1933 the new Queensland Labor Government amended the Bureau of Industry Act, permitting the establishment of a Bridge Board chaired by JR Kemp, Commissioner for Main Roads, to plan a government-constructed toll bridge at Kangaroo Point.
Premature in terms of traffic requirements, the bridge was promoted as an employment-generating scheme. It was one of three such projects undertaken by the Queensland Government in the mid-1930s, the others being the Stanley River Dam and the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia.
Dr JCC Bradfield, designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was appointed consulting engineer on the 1st of January 1934. He chose JA Holt as supervising engineer for the design of the bridge and supervision of the contract. Design and site surveys were undertaken in 1934.
Although modelled on the Montreal Harbour Bridge, completed in 1930, Bradfield emphasised that the grey steel elevation of the bridge was designed to harmonise with Brisbane's natural skyline.
Tenders for the Kangaroo Point Bridge were called in January 1935. The contract was let to Evans Deakin-Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd, with a price of £1,154,000, and construction commenced in May.
The Story Bridge remains the largest steel bridge designed and built mostly by Australians from Australian materials. Approximately 95 per cent of the materials used were of Australian manufacture, and 89 per cent of the cost of works was expended in Queensland.
All the steelwork, approximately 12,000 tonnes, was fabricated at the Rocklea workshop of Evans, Deakin & Co. Ltd. One truss of each type of approach span, and all joints of the main bridge, were assembled at the workshop then dismantled before removal, ensuring there were no difficulties in erecting the steelwork on site.
The concrete work and erection of the superstructure was carried out on site by the MR Hornibrook organisation.
The bridge was constructed simultaneously from both ends, with the main piers erected first. Excavations for the southern pier necessitated men working in watertight airlock chambers within steel caissons up to 40 metres below ground level. This was the deepest airlock work done in Australia at the time.
The approach spans were erected by a hammer-head crane operating along a runway. Then the anchor-cantilever trusses were erected in five stages using a 40 tonne derrick crane running on a temporary track on the bridge deck. Finally the bridge was closed using a system of wedge devices inserted in the top and bottom chords of each truss at the ends of the suspended span.
During 1938, which was the busiest period of construction, close to 400 persons were employed in the workshops, offices and on site.
From mid-1935 to 1940 the bridge was known as the Jubilee Bridge, honouring George V, but when opened on the 6th of July 1940 it was named after JD Story, the Public Service Commissioner and a member of the Bridge Board. The designer and the chairman of the Bridge Board were honoured in the naming of the southern approach viaduct as the Bradfield Highway and the northern approach as Kemp Place.
Although an engineering success, the bridge was regarded initially as a white elephant, the toll being unpopular and the traffic demand negligible. Not until the arrival of American troops in 1942 was the Story Bridge fully utilised. Nevertheless, the final cost of £1.6 million was recuperated within seven years, and in 1947 the bridge was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and the toll was removed.
The Story Bridge has become one of Brisbane's most widely recognised landmarks. Its illumination, carried out by SEQEB in time for the 1986 Warana festival, reflects its unique status as a symbol of the city.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Cley windmill іs а five storey tower mill wіth а stage аt second floor level, twenty feet above ground. Іt has а dome shaped cap wіth а gallery whіch wаs winded by аn eight-bladed fantail, ten feet six inches іn diameter. The cap іs nоw fixed аnd unable tо turn tо wind. There аre four double Patent sails wіth а span оf 70 ft, carried оn stocks 56ft long. The inner pair hаve eight bays оf three shutters аnd the outer pair hаve nine bays оf twо shutters аnd оne оf three shutters. Іn 1819 the sails powered twо pairs оf French burr millstones, а flour mill аnd jumper but by 1876 thіs hаd been increased tо 3 pairs оf stones аnd а smut machine hаd been added.
Cley windmill wаs built іn the early 19th century. Іt wаs nоt marked оn William Faden’s map оf Norfolk published іn 1797. The fіrst mention wаs аn advert іn the Norfolk Chronicle оf 26 June 1819, where the mill wаs fоr sale, described аs “newly erected” аnd іn the ownership оf the Farthing family. The mill wаs nоt sold аnd remained the property оf the Farthing family, until 1875, when Dorothy Farthing, the then owner, died. The mill wаs bought by the miller, Stephen Barnabas Burroughes. Іt wаs worked by the Burroughes family until c1912, when the business wаs transferred tо theіr windmill аt Holt.
Built c1912 by Capital Boatworks, Laurier Ave, Ottawa.
Acquired from the MacGregor Farm estate, Carleton Place.
Dated though the four-digit phone number on the maker's decal.
Clinker-built, planked in eastern white cedar, with butternut rubbing strake, white oak stem, stern and ribs. Mahogany seats.
Before outboard motors became common, St Lawrence Rowing skiffs like this were very popular for recreation in central Canada, along with St Lawrence Sailing skiffs.
The black stripes on the oars are carbon fibre reinforcing - not period-correct, but allowed making them lighter.
Bill and Teddy G. took it to numerous antique boat events, including this one at Clayton, NY.
Mission, BC Canada
Downstream from the dam: the MV Shirley, a tug used on the reservoirs to gather up timber and debris.
The Power House at Stave Falls is owned and operated by BC Hydro. The Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse were constructed from 1909 and completed on January 1, 1912 with the purpose of providing hydro-electricity to the Lower Mainland. A few years after construction at Stave Falls was complete, construction of another dam (Ruskin Dam) downstream from Stave Falls began in order to cope with the growing demand.
The Stave Falls Powerhouse, originally built in 1912, now operates as a museum/educational facility.
The Power House at Stave Falls and informative visitor center are now open for the public to find out about how hydro-electricity is generated and to take a look at some of the huge machinery needed for such a job and in recognition of the historical importance of this site it was designated a National Heritage Site in 2004.
This image is best viewed in Large screen.
Thank-you for your visit, and please know that any faves or comments are always greatly appreciated!
Sonja
Howard Smith Wharves:
The Howard Smith Wharves were constructed 1934-early 1940s by the Queensland government to provide relief work during the depression years of the 1930s. Initially known as the Brisbane Central Wharves, the project was undertaken in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of the Forgan-Smith government's principal employment-generating projects. Like other such schemes, the Brisbane Central Wharves not only provided employment, but established important infrastructure for Queensland's future development. Brisbane Central Wharves were leased by the Australian coastal shipping company Howard Smith Co. Ltd from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, and are more usually referred to as the Howard Smith Wharves.
The site had an even earlier connection with Howard Smith, as the Brisbane Central Wharves replaced smaller wharves constructed in the early years of the 20th century by Brisbane Wharves Ltd, for lease by William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd].
The construction of wharves beyond Circular Quay was part of the gradual move downstream of port facilities at Brisbane, in a process which began in the 1840s. Following the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in 1842, commercial wharf facilities were erected at South Brisbane, which offered more direct access for Darling Downs and Ipswich commodities than the north bank of the river where the government wharf [Queen's Wharf] was located. By 1850 there were 5 commercial wharves on the south side of the Brisbane River.
However, following the declaration of Brisbane as a port of entry in 1846, a customs house was built in Queen Street near the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, on the north side of the river at Petrie Bight. From this time, the Town Reach rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. In the late 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between Petrie Bight and Alice Street, near the botanic gardens. To encourage private business activity the colonial government and Brisbane Municipal Council also built wharves along Petrie Bight in the 1870s and leased them to shipping companies. By 1900 the Brisbane Municipal Council owned a string of wharves from the custom's house to Boundary Street.
Private companies constructed wharves further downstream at New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead from the early 1900s. In the 1920s-30s the government built railway wharves at Pinkenba, branch rail lines to Teneriffe and Hamilton, and the state cold stores and reinforced concrete wharves at Hamilton. After the Story Bridge was opened in 1940 most large overseas and interstate vessels did not use the wharves at the Town Reach. Hamilton became the heart of Brisbane's port, and the part of the river from the South Brisbane Reach, round the Town Reach to Petrie Bight lost the ascendancy it had around the turn of the century. Since the 1960s, most of Brisbane's port activity has relocated to the mouth of the river.
In the 1880s William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd] leased the Commercial Wharf on the Town Reach from the Brisbane Municipal Council. Howard Smith was one of several important shipping companies which traded on the Australian coast from the mid-19th century, and was one of the earliest. The business was established in Melbourne in 1854 by Captain William Howard Smith, and in the second half of the 19th century developed as one of the dominant companies in the Australian coastal shipping trade. Initially the firm traded between Melbourne and England, but in 1860 entered the inter-colonial trade, and from 1864 concentrated solely on this. Howard Smith was trading in central Queensland by the early 1870s, and in the 1880s extended its operations to northern Queensland. In the 1890s, the firm entered into a strong rivalry with other coastal shipping companies for the lucrative intra- and inter-colonial passenger trade.
In the late 1890s, Howard Smith moved downstream from the Commercial Wharves to the Brisbane City Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie Bight, and in the early years of the 20th century leased adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs. These wharves were extended c1912 and in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government and rebuilt as the Brisbane Central Wharves.
The resumption and rebuilding of the Brisbane Central Wharves was an adjunct to the construction of the Story Bridge between Kangaroo Point and Fortitude Valley. As part of the bridge project the state government had resolved to improve the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, by widening it to a uniform width of 800 feet (240 m), deepening the draught to about 26 feet (8 m), and improving the river approaches. This necessitated demolishing the existing wharves and sheds at the Brisbane Central Wharves, excavating the cliff below Bowen Terrace, and widening the river at this point by up to 70 feet (21 metres). The path of the river was cut back and made smoother. Three chords were planned around the bend in the river, each providing a berth of about 500 feet (152 m). The total work, described in the 1935 Annual Report of the Bureau of Industry (the government body in charge of the project), was estimated to cost in excess of £400,000.
Work on the scheme commenced in 1934 and continued into the early 1940s. In January 1935 the existing wharf facilities occupied by Howard Smith Co. Ltd were resumed, along with a disused wharf upstream owned by the Brisbane City Council. The construction of the wharves was undertaken using day labour, and was staged over several years so that port activity could continue.
The first of the new structures erected was a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building completed by 1936 as offices for Howard Smith Co. Ltd. It was located on the waterfront, and commanded excellent views of the Town and Shafton Reaches of the Brisbane River.
Three berths with five new storage sheds were planned. Each of the gabled sheds was constructed primarily of hardwood timber, and sheeted and roofed with timber boards and corrugated iron. Sliding doors within these sheds opened towards the river for the handling of cargo. Sheds nos.1-3 were located at the upper berth under the Story Bridge, the middle berth accommodated the large no.4 shed [double-gabled , twice as wide as the others, and much longer], and no.5 shed was located at the lower berth downstream. No.5 shed was the first to be erected and a temporary wharf constructed. The middle berth with no.4 shed was almost completed by 1937, then work commenced on the upper berth, which was to contain sheds 1-3. This was completed in 1939.
For the wharves, a reinforced concrete base was laid on the rock at the river's edge, with timber piles rammed into the riverbed. Large hardwood timbers were used for the walings and decking, which extended about 24 feet (8 metres) out over the river. Hundreds of thousands of feet of timber - mostly hardwoods such as ironbark, blue gum, yellow stringybark, spotted gum and messmate - were required to build the berths.
The road widening behind the sheds, which necessitated the cutting back of the New Farm cliffs, was completed by 1938.
As work continued on the lower berth into 1940, the Second World War intervened. By 1942 the men working on the Petrie Bight works were transferred to other projects more directly connected with the war effort, and work on the wharves was closed down. The third berth appears never to have been completed. A 1945 plan of the site shows the upper and middle berths complete but the lower berth still without any timber decking for wharfage.
In 1941-42 the Brisbane City Council constructed five air-raid shelters near the Howard Smith Wharves below the cliff face, for the Bureau of Industry. The threat of invasion by Japan appeared very real at the time, there was a substantial workforce employed at the wharves, and the site was located adjacent to the Story Bridge - a prime target in wartime. Three of the shelters were the usual 'pillbox' style built by the City Council at many places in the inner city and in the suburbs. This was a standard type, rectangular in plan and constructed of concrete. However, the other two shelters at the Howard Smith Wharves were constructed of large stormwater pipes with multiple entrances. The Brisbane City Council used concrete stormwater pipes to cover the slit trenches in the Botanic Gardens and Victoria Park, but no other air raid shelters of the 'pipe' type have been identified in Brisbane. It is not known why the two different types of shelters were constructed at the Howard Smith Wharves.
Howard Smith signed a 21 year lease over the Brisbane Central Wharves site in 1936. After this lease expired the company made the inevitable move in the early 1960s to better facilities downstream at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Water Police then occupied part of the site [the office building and several sheds], and Queensland Works Department has used the site for storage for many years. Vehicles impounded by the police were stored here as well.
A large part of the timber decking from both the upper and middle berths was washed away during the 1974 floods.
Most of the wharves which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the central city have been demolished in the riverside re-developments of the last 20 years. The former Howard Smith Wharves remain one of the few surviving, and the most intact, with office, sheds and wharfage.
Story Bridge:
This steel and concrete cantilevered bridge was constructed between 1935 and 1940 by contractors Evans Deakin-Hornibrook for the Queensland Government.
As early as January 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council's Cross River Commission had recommended the construction of a bridge at Kangaroo Point. Due to sectarian interests and prohibitive costs, however, the council chose instead to erect the Grey Street Bridge in 1929 -1932.
In 1933 the new Queensland Labor Government amended the Bureau of Industry Act, permitting the establishment of a Bridge Board chaired by JR Kemp, Commissioner for Main Roads, to plan a government-constructed toll bridge at Kangaroo Point.
Premature in terms of traffic requirements, the bridge was promoted as an employment-generating scheme. It was one of three such projects undertaken by the Queensland Government in the mid-1930s, the others being the Stanley River Dam and the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia.
Dr JCC Bradfield, designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was appointed consulting engineer on the 1st of January 1934. He chose JA Holt as supervising engineer for the design of the bridge and supervision of the contract. Design and site surveys were undertaken in 1934.
Although modelled on the Montreal Harbour Bridge, completed in 1930, Bradfield emphasised that the grey steel elevation of the bridge was designed to harmonise with Brisbane's natural skyline.
Tenders for the Kangaroo Point Bridge were called in January 1935. The contract was let to Evans Deakin-Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd, with a price of £1,154,000, and construction commenced in May.
The Story Bridge remains the largest steel bridge designed and built mostly by Australians from Australian materials. Approximately 95 per cent of the materials used were of Australian manufacture, and 89 per cent of the cost of works was expended in Queensland.
All the steelwork, approximately 12,000 tonnes, was fabricated at the Rocklea workshop of Evans, Deakin & Co. Ltd. One truss of each type of approach span, and all joints of the main bridge, were assembled at the workshop then dismantled before removal, ensuring there were no difficulties in erecting the steelwork on site.
The concrete work and erection of the superstructure was carried out on site by the MR Hornibrook organisation.
The bridge was constructed simultaneously from both ends, with the main piers erected first. Excavations for the southern pier necessitated men working in watertight airlock chambers within steel caissons up to 40 metres below ground level. This was the deepest airlock work done in Australia at the time.
The approach spans were erected by a hammer-head crane operating along a runway. Then the anchor-cantilever trusses were erected in five stages using a 40 tonne derrick crane running on a temporary track on the bridge deck. Finally the bridge was closed using a system of wedge devices inserted in the top and bottom chords of each truss at the ends of the suspended span.
During 1938, which was the busiest period of construction, close to 400 persons were employed in the workshops, offices and on site.
From mid-1935 to 1940 the bridge was known as the Jubilee Bridge, honouring George V, but when opened on the 6th of July 1940 it was named after JD Story, the Public Service Commissioner and a member of the Bridge Board. The designer and the chairman of the Bridge Board were honoured in the naming of the southern approach viaduct as the Bradfield Highway and the northern approach as Kemp Place.
Although an engineering success, the bridge was regarded initially as a white elephant, the toll being unpopular and the traffic demand negligible. Not until the arrival of American troops in 1942 was the Story Bridge fully utilised. Nevertheless, the final cost of £1.6 million was recuperated within seven years, and in 1947 the bridge was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and the toll was removed.
The Story Bridge has become one of Brisbane's most widely recognised landmarks. Its illumination, carried out by SEQEB in time for the 1986 Warana festival, reflects its unique status as a symbol of the city.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
The rear cover of the August 1926 AEG Progress magazine, this detailing the company's extensive railway activities. The very ordered layout and typography is a common theme in AEG's publicity - for many years this showed the influence of Peter Behrens, the architect appointed in 1907 as the company's 'industrial designer' and who influenced almost every detail of the company's 'corporate identity', including the trademark logo lettering seen here, this version and typeface dating from c1912/14.
The Yellowhead Highway (#16), visible directly under the locomotives, was rerouted a few years after this photo was taken. The new route by-passed the store here, which led to it being closed and pulled down. Too bad, as the place had character.
The railway bridge at Skeena Crossing is still very much in use, a full 100 years after its construction c1912.
Worth viewing large.
This is the Bank of Liverpool's second branch (of three) in Church Street. It opened in 1891 and was replaced c1915 (see photo below).
On the corner of Bold Street & Hanover Street is the North & South Wales Bank (1903), which ended up as Midland Bank/HSBC.
The Midland was about the only bank to "modernise" their ground floors (see photo below).
The corner site was being rebuilt when this photo was taken and would house Premier Buildings, later Boots Corner and now Lloyds Bank, with the replacement Bank of Liverpool next door.
NB.
This is a crop from a LRO photo (out of copyright), so consequently it's OK to use it.
It doesn't belong to the lurking "Angelcr@p" from Facebook who says it's hers, but never gives her sources.
Besides, I'm sure she hasn't researched the history of Liverpool's banks, which was my reason for posting it.
This is the Bank of Liverpool's second branch in Church Street.
Bank of Liverpool, 46-48 Church Street. Open by 7 October 1891.
This was the Bank of Liverpool's thirteenth branch.
Closed by 19 May 1915.
See 50 Church Street.
Photo below.
Gray’s-by-the-Sea boarding house on Waikiki Beach with a great view of Diamond Head, Opened around 1912, became part of the Halekulani Hotel around 1917. This section of Waikiki Beach is known as “Gray’s Beach” to this day. Vintage but undated divided back postcard.
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Well, I just had to include a photo of the windmill of course. It wаs built іn the early 19th century, being fіrst mentioned in аn advert іn the Norfolk Chronicle оf 26 June 1819, where the mill wаs fоr sale, described аs “newly erected” аnd іn the ownership оf the Farthing family. It seems there were no takers, for the mill remained the property оf the Farthing family, until 1875, when Dorothy Farthing, the then owner, died. The mill wаs then bought by the miller, Stephen Barnabas Burroughes and worked by the Burroughes family until c1912, when the business wаs transferred tо theіr windmill аt Holt.
In 1921, the windmill wаs sold by the Burroughes family tо Mrs Sarah Maria Wilson fоr the sum оf £350 аnd she hаd the mill converted into а holiday home. Since that time it has never been a working mill, and it is now a restaurant, wedding venue and bed & breakfast accommodation. Covid permitting……
Officially opened in October 1888, the stone Warwick Town Hall on Palmerin Street is important in demonstrating the consolidation and importance of Warwick as a business and administrative centre for the surrounding district during the late 19th century. It is an excellent example of the work of architect Willoughby Powell, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century town hall, is a landmark, and has a long association with the Warwick community. The Footballers Memorial, a marble honour board mounted on the front of the Town Hall, is a rare and unusual example of a war memorial that reflects the contemporary parallels drawn between war and sport.
The first European pastoralists, Patrick Leslie and his brothers, arrived on the Darling Downs in 1840, and selected the land which became Toolburra and Canning Downs stations. The New South Wales Government opened the Darling Downs Pastoral District on 11 May 1843, and in 1847 the site of Warwick was chosen as the business and administrative centre for the southern Darling Downs.
Warwick township, surveyed in 1849, developed slowly during the 1850s and by 1857 the population of the parish of Warwick had reached just over 1300. Under the provisions of the 1858 Municipalities Act (NSW), any centre with a population in excess of 1000 was entitled to petition the colonial government for recognition as a municipality. Brisbane was proclaimed a municipality on 7 September 1859.
By 1859, the year in which the colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales, the township of Warwick was recognised as a major urban centre on the Darling Downs, and when Queensland's new electoral districts (settled areas only) were proclaimed on 20 December 1859, the electorate of the Town of Warwick had its own representative in the Legislative Assembly.
In February 1861 a petition calling for municipal status for the town of Warwick, with 110 signatures appended, was sent to the Queensland Governor, and on 25 May 1861 Warwick was proclaimed a municipality. The municipal boundary followed the original Warwick Town Reserve of five square miles. Warwick was the fifth corporation created in Queensland outside of Brisbane, being preceded by Ipswich, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Maryborough. The first Warwick municipal election was conducted on 5 July 1861, and at its first meeting on 15 July 1861, the Warwick Municipal Council elected John James Kingsford as the first mayor of Warwick.
At this time the first Warwick Town Hall was established in a slab building at the northern end of Albion Street, which had been constructed in the early 1850s as Warwick's first court house. In 1873 the Council purchased the Masonic Hall, a brick building in Palmerin Street, and this served as the Warwick Town Hall until imposing new premises were constructed in 1887, on a half-acre (2023m2) site in Palmerin Street purchased for £500. During the late 19th century, Palmerin Street gradually replaced Albion Street as the main centre of commercial and public activity in Warwick.
A sum of £2000 was borrowed from the Queensland Government, and a competition for the design of the new Town Hall was held in 1885, expenditure not exceeding £3,500. First place in the competition was won by Clark Bros, a partnership formed in Sydney in 1883 between architect brothers John J and George Clark; the design by Clark Bros coming closest to Council's budget. However, although more costly, the design of second placegetter, Willoughby Powell, was eventually chosen for the new Town Hall.
Powell had arrived in Queensland c1873, and practiced as an architect until c1913. During Powell's architectural career in which he alternated between employment in the Queensland Department of Public Works and periods of private practice, including working for Richard Gailey, he was responsible for the design of a number of substantial buildings in Toowoomba, Maryborough, and Brisbane including churches, private residences, shops hotels, and the Toowoomba Grammar School. Powell was also responsible for the winning design in a competition for the (third) Toowoomba City Hall, although he subsequently had to give up supervision of its construction to Toowoomba architects James Marks and Son in order to take up an appointment in the Department of Public Works. Powell died in 1920.
Tenders for the building were called in 1887. Although tenders were called for either a brick and stone or an all-stone building, Council accepted the tender of Michael O'Brien for a stone building, and the contract with O'Brien, for £4810, was signed in March 1887. Warwick had access to quality building stone from a number of nearby locations. As early as 1861 Warwick boasted 16 stone houses. By 1886, there were 14 stone masons working in Warwick, as opposed to four bricklayers. Warwick’s sandstone buildings indicated prosperity and importance, which reinforced its position as the major town on the southern Darling Downs.
Shortly after construction began, O'Brien advised the Council he was insolvent, and arranged for the firm of Stewart, Law and Longwill to take over the work, which they did on 9 July 1887. Work recommenced under the supervision of William Wallace, with sandstone transported from the Mt Sturt quarry for the Palmerin Street elevation, and from the Mt Tate quarry for the back and sides of the building.
The stone work was subcontracted to John McCulloch, a Warwick stonemason responsible for the stone work on a number of prominent buildings in the town including Pringle Cottage (McCulloch’s house), the Court House, St Marks Church, St Andrews Church, Central School, the Sisters of Mercy Convent, the Railway Goods Shed and the Albion Street Post Office.
The foundation stone of the new Town Hall was laid on 13 August 1887 by Lady Griffith, wife of then Premier of Queensland, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith. A bottle, sealed with the Corporation seal and containing a copy of a commemorative scroll, copies of the local papers and coins, was placed in a cavity in the stone.
A clock tower was not part of Powell's original design for the new Town Hall. In late 1887, however, it was suggested that the building would be enhanced by the addition of a clock tower. At a meeting of ratepayers in December 1887, a vote was carried in favour of the addition of a tower which was subsequently incorporated into the building. The final cost of the Town Hall was £6317. The clock itself was not installed until 1891-2. It is understood that the Council acquired a bell from St Mary's Church in Warwick, which was eventually installed on the outside of the tower.
Occupied by the Council from September 1888, and hosting its first public performance on 7 September, the new Town Hall was formally opened on 1 October 1888 by the Mayor of Warwick, Ald. Arthur Morgan. The event was marked with a concert given by the local Philharmonic Society. In his remarks, Morgan described the new Town Hall as ‘...a credit to the town… If there was any truth in the saying that the history of a town was known by the character of its buildings, then the Municipal Council of Warwick had no reason to be ashamed of the page they had contributed to the history of their town’.
The Town Hall faced west directly onto Palmerin Street. It was reported that the front of the ground floor contained, either side of a 30ft by 9ft (9.1m by 2.7m) corridor, two rooms on the south side, each 20ft by 13ft (6m by 4m); and a front room on the north side, with another office behind. The southern rooms were meant for the aldermen, and the northern rooms for the Town Clerk and the rate collector, but these officials instead chose to occupy the first floor rooms. The first floor included two offices, ‘on the right’, each 14ft by 13ft (4.3m by 4m), with a front room extending the width of the building, for the Municipal Chambers. A narrow staircase ascended from the first floor, to a series of steps and ladders within the tower. The hall, with a panelled and coved ceiling and seven windows to each side, was 70ft (21.3m) long from its entrance to the stage, and 42ft (12.8m) wide, with walls 26ft (7.9m) in height. Doors led to the stage on either side of the arched proscenium – which had a 22ft by 18ft (6.7m by 5.5m) opening – and there were two dressing rooms at the rear of the building.
The Town Hall was the venue for a number of celebrations, including a ball for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. Fireworks were discharged from the tower to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking, during the war in South Africa in 1900, and the balcony of the Town Hall was used to proclaim the declaration of the WWI Armistice in November 1914 and of the City of Warwick on 2 April 1936. A reception was held in the hall in 1923 for the Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, when he laid the foundation stone for the war memorial in Leslie Park.
It was also used by community groups for balls, festivities suppers, concerts and flower shows. The hall’s acoustics attracted travelling performers, including JC Williamson, Peter Dawson and Gladys Moncrief. As well as hosting functions, the Town Hall was used for picture shows, with references to Cook’s Pictures being shown there as early as 1906.
The building has had a number of additions and renovations over the years. Gas lighting was installed in the building in 1889, and was subsequently replaced by electricity c1912-3. In October 1907 Conrad Cobden Dornbusch, architect, called tenders for the addition of a gallery (a tiered balcony for audience seats) and iron escape stairs in the hall.
Dornbusch (1867-1949) trained in England, and by 1887 was employed in the Brisbane office of the Architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp. He was practicing as an architect in Warwick by 1891, where he had an office in the Warwick Town Hall during the 1890s. He was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1893, and a Fellow in 1913. He was an Alderman of the Warwick Municipal Council in 1901. In 1910 he entered into a partnership with Daniel Connolly, with their offices located opposite the Town Hall. Dornbusch and Connolly worked on a number of prominent Warwick buildings, including the Christian Brothers’ School; the Mitchner shelter shed at the Warwick General Cemetery; the Johnsons Building adjacent to the Town Hall; the Langham and Criterion hotels on Palmerin Street; and St Mary’s Church. The partnership also designed the rest house at the Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial.
The new town hall gallery designed by Dornbusch was 42 feet (12.8m) by 13 feet 6 inches (4.1m) with five tiers for seating. The balcony fascia was panelled with pressed metal. On the southern side of the gallery was a fire escape door leading to an external iron stair to the alley running down the side of the building. The plans included substantial swing doors leading into the hall from the ground floor foyer, which were built under a separate contract. The contract for the gallery was awarded to HD Miller, who commenced work on 9 December 1907 and promised to have the gallery ready by Boxing Day, for the Caledonian Society’s 35th annual gathering in the Town Hall – a feat which was just achieved. The contract for the swing doors was let in September 1908 to JD Connellan and R Elloyes. Steel girders were installed on the front of the balcony to support these doors which hung between the vestibule and the auditorium.
The Town Hall was also extended at the rear in 1911. Efforts to extend the Town Hall date from about 1907, when new supper rooms at the back of the hall were recommended by the Town Hall Committee. By 1908 the committee also hoped to enlarge the hall. Loans were obtained from the Queensland Government, and in 1910 Dornbusch and Connolly were commissioned to design the additions. The work was undertaken in 1911 by contractors Connolly and Bell (for a tender of £1297), and when the Town Hall Committee inspected the additions in August 1911, it stated that 200 more chairs were required, due to the extension of the hall, and that the area underneath the ‘new dressing rooms’ should be enclosed with corrugated iron.
The Town Hall was also a place for a prominent memorial to remember the war dead. In early 1917 a movement was initiated by James Brown, Patron of the Warwick and District Amateur Rugby Football League, to erect ‘a memorial to honour the Warwick league football heroes, who have given their lives for their King and country (and those who may yet fall)’. A committee was formed, subscriptions collected and a tablet unveiled at a ceremony on 12 May 1917. Inscribed with nine names (later 19) and placed to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall, the tablet was the work of Warwick masons Troyahn, Coulter and Thompson. In unveiling the tablet, the then Mayor of Warwick Ald. Gilham drew contemporary parallels between war and sport, suggesting that ‘There were worse places for young fellows to be than on the football field and places that were not such good training grounds to fit the young fellows for service to the Empire. It was said that Waterloo was won on the cricket fields of England. Probably some of the glories of the war had been contributed to, and to some extent made possible by, the previous practice the boys had received on the football fields of sunny Queensland’.
A tablet/plaque to the memory of Colonel William James Foster CB, CMG, DSO, Australian Staff Corps, was also mounted to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall in 1930. Colonel Foster was born in Warwick in 1881 and died in England in 1927. The memorial was erected by Colonel Foster's brother officers, of the Australian Staff Corps and Australian Light Horse.
Further changes occurred in the Town Hall in the 1920s. Undated plans by Dornbusch and Connolly show that a strong room, 3ft 9 inches by 8ft (1.1m by 2.4m) with a concrete floor, was added to the upper floor adjacent to the gallery, and this occurred between 1925 and 1929. In 1925 there were also plans to turn the Town Clerk and accountant’s rooms into the Council Chamber, and vice versa. Minor alterations to the vestibule were made in April 1926, to plans by Dornbusch and Connolly, and the nosing of the step at the entrance was modified. Tiles were added to the entrance vestibule c1929. On 6 August 1930 a contract was signed with James Straddock to build a ticket office in the vestibule in accordance with plans drawn by Dornbusch.
The Town Hall was again extended to the rear, including the construction of a separate lavatory block, in 1929-30. In 1928 the Town Hall Committee recommended renovations and further additions, including extending the dressing rooms and the back of the Town Hall, and erecting four brick lavatories. The lack of ‘public conveniences’ had been an issue for Warwick for some time. There was only one latrine, in Leslie Park, in 1911, and more public lavatories for Warwick had become part of the local Labor Party’s policy by 1927.
The tender of P Thornton for £2877, for improvements to the Town Hall to be completed in 18 weeks, was accepted in June 1929. The improvements included a new supper room, measuring 42ft by 30ft (12.8m by 9.1m), which was almost finished in September 1929. By that time widening of the Council Chamber – from 13ft to 20ft (4m to 6m) – was about to commence. The new supper room appears to have been added to the rear (east) of the existing 1911 timber extension.
The lavatories were completed by August 1930, when Dornbusch (as architect) and Thornton (as contractor) were in a disagreement about Thornton’s adherence to the building specifications: the joists in the supper room were in many cases over 5 inches (12.7cm) wider apart than specified, while the rafters in the lavatory block were more than double the width apart that was specified. The lavatories were attached to a septic system, as Warwick’s sewerage scheme was not implemented until World War II. The Town Hall lavatory block was seen as ‘out of date’ by 1948, and new public toilets were built on Grafton Street by June 1954 (since replaced).
Warwick was one of the first municipalities in Queensland to have a lethal chamber for exterminating stray cats and dogs with coal gas, and one was added ‘at the rear of the Town Hall yard’ by March 1935. It was said to have been built of concrete, with a removable door and two pipes; one for pumping in the gas, and one for releasing displaced air. Death was supposed to occur within 3-4 minutes, and was seen as an improvement on the previous method of death by hanging. However, no written evidence has been found confirming its exact location.
In October 1935 Warwick celebrated (prematurely) 75 years of municipal government, and at this time the local press popularised the idea of the town being proclaimed a city. The Queensland Cabinet approved the granting of city status to Warwick on 2 April 1936, and this was celebrated in Warwick on 29 June.
By the 1950s there was pressure to extended the Town Hall once more, and £7500 was borrowed, although the City Engineer claimed that £14,000 would be required to ensure adequate seating, stage space and dressing rooms, while completely replacing the supper room and building a new kitchen. This work did not eventuate.
A Council employee, Tom Bryant, recalled that in the 1950s the room on the ground floor to the southern side of the entrance was used by a clerk and two typists, while immediately inside the office was a large public counter. In the 1960s the position of Health Surveyor was created and the room was divided to provide a separate office space. On the northern side of the entry was the committee room which was connected to the Shire Clerk’s Office. Upstairs, office space was provided for the Works Foreman and the Sewerage Foreman, while the Mayor had a private office and retiring room. The room on the southern side was used for Council meetings. A raised podium was provided for the Mayor and part of the room was separated by a rail to form a public gallery which had a separate doorway.
In 1965 the supper room was modernised in accordance with plans prepared by Warwick Consulting Engineer HA Leonard. Between 1962 and 1972 a kitchen extension was added at the rear of the hall, onto the other extensions.
By the late 1960s, the Town Hall was considered generally inadequate for the purposes of the City Council. A new administration centre was erected at the corner of Fitzroy and Albion Streets, and the last meeting of the Council was held in the Town Hall in August 1975.
The Town Hall, after being listed with the National Trust in 1973, was re-roofed in 1975 with a National Estate Grant, and a damp proof course was inserted into the main building in 1976.
Further refurbishments occurred in 1984, when the ceiling and walls were repainted and new incandescent chandeliers replaced the former fluorescent lights. Stage lighting was renewed and improved and a bio box was installed behind the gallery to provide required lighting effects. Carpet was laid on the floor, which was provided with heating, and concrete was poured on the foyer floor. In the 1990s there was a problem with rising damp in the front, northern room, which did damage to the plasterwork, and repairs were made c1998. The rear office on the northern side of the ground floor has also been converted to a men’s toilet at some point.
In July 1994 the Queensland Government amalgamated the City of Warwick and the surrounding Shires of Allora, Glengallan and Rosenthal to form the Shire of Warwick; which was later amalgamated with Stanthorpe Shire in 2008 to form the Southern Downs Regional Council.
The Warwick Town Hall remains in use as a venue for community functions including flower shows, school plays and other entertainment. In 2017 its ground floor offices were used for a tourism office and craft shop, while the upstairs rooms were used by the Southern Downs Regional Council’s Economic Development Unit. The building remains a prominent local landmark in the otherwise low-rise centre of the town.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
The Howard Smith Wharves:
The Howard Smith Wharves were constructed 1934-early 1940s by the Queensland government to provide relief work during the depression years of the 1930s. Initially known as the Brisbane Central Wharves, the project was undertaken in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of the Forgan-Smith government's principal employment-generating projects. Like other such schemes, the Brisbane Central Wharves not only provided employment, but established important infrastructure for Queensland's future development. Brisbane Central Wharves were leased by the Australian coastal shipping company Howard Smith Co. Ltd from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, and are more usually referred to as the Howard Smith Wharves.
The site had an even earlier connection with Howard Smith, as the Brisbane Central Wharves replaced smaller wharves constructed in the early years of the 20th century by Brisbane Wharves Ltd, for lease by William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd].
The construction of wharves beyond Circular Quay was part of the gradual move downstream of port facilities at Brisbane, in a process which began in the 1840s. Following the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in 1842, commercial wharf facilities were erected at South Brisbane, which offered more direct access for Darling Downs and Ipswich commodities than the north bank of the river where the government wharf [Queen's Wharf] was located. By 1850 there were 5 commercial wharves on the south side of the Brisbane River.
However, following the declaration of Brisbane as a port of entry in 1846, a customs house was built in Queen Street near the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, on the north side of the river at Petrie Bight. From this time, the Town Reach rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. In the late 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between Petrie Bight and Alice Street, near the botanic gardens. To encourage private business activity the colonial government and Brisbane Municipal Council also built wharves along Petrie Bight in the 1870s and leased them to shipping companies. By 1900 the Brisbane Municipal Council owned a string of wharves from the custom's house to Boundary Street.
Private companies constructed wharves further downstream at New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead from the early 1900s. In the 1920s-30s the government built railway wharves at Pinkenba, branch rail lines to Teneriffe and Hamilton, and the state cold stores and reinforced concrete wharves at Hamilton. After the Story Bridge was opened in 1940 most large overseas and interstate vessels did not use the wharves at the Town Reach. Hamilton became the heart of Brisbane's port, and the part of the river from the South Brisbane Reach, round the Town Reach to Petrie Bight lost the ascendancy it had around the turn of the century. Since the 1960s, most of Brisbane's port activity has relocated to the mouth of the river.
In the 1880s William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd] leased the Commercial Wharf on the Town Reach from the Brisbane Municipal Council. Howard Smith was one of several important shipping companies which traded on the Australian coast from the mid-19th century, and was one of the earliest. The business was established in Melbourne in 1854 by Captain William Howard Smith, and in the second half of the 19th century developed as one of the dominant companies in the Australian coastal shipping trade. Initially the firm traded between Melbourne and England, but in 1860 entered the inter-colonial trade, and from 1864 concentrated solely on this. Howard Smith was trading in central Queensland by the early 1870s, and in the 1880s extended its operations to northern Queensland. In the 1890s, the firm entered into a strong rivalry with other coastal shipping companies for the lucrative intra- and inter-colonial passenger trade.
In the late 1890s, Howard Smith moved downstream from the Commercial Wharves to the Brisbane City Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie Bight, and in the early years of the 20th century leased adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs. These wharves were extended c1912 and in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government and rebuilt as the Brisbane Central Wharves.
The resumption and rebuilding of the Brisbane Central Wharves was an adjunct to the construction of the Story Bridge between Kangaroo Point and Fortitude Valley. As part of the bridge project the state government had resolved to improve the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, by widening it to a uniform width of 800 feet (240 m), deepening the draught to about 26 feet (8 m), and improving the river approaches. This necessitated demolishing the existing wharves and sheds at the Brisbane Central Wharves, excavating the cliff below Bowen Terrace, and widening the river at this point by up to 70 feet (21 metres). The path of the river was cut back and made smoother. Three chords were planned around the bend in the river, each providing a berth of about 500 feet (152 m). The total work, described in the 1935 Annual Report of the Bureau of Industry (the government body in charge of the project), was estimated to cost in excess of £400,000.
Work on the scheme commenced in 1934 and continued into the early 1940s. In January 1935 the existing wharf facilities occupied by Howard Smith Co. Ltd were resumed, along with a disused wharf upstream owned by the Brisbane City Council. The construction of the wharves was undertaken using day labour, and was staged over several years so that port activity could continue.
The first of the new structures erected was a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building completed by 1936 as offices for Howard Smith Co. Ltd. It was located on the waterfront, and commanded excellent views of the Town and Shafton Reaches of the Brisbane River.
Three berths with five new storage sheds were planned. Each of the gabled sheds was constructed primarily of hardwood timber, and sheeted and roofed with timber boards and corrugated iron. Sliding doors within these sheds opened towards the river for the handling of cargo. Sheds nos.1-3 were located at the upper berth under the Story Bridge, the middle berth accommodated the large no.4 shed [double-gabled , twice as wide as the others, and much longer], and no.5 shed was located at the lower berth downstream. No.5 shed was the first to be erected and a temporary wharf constructed. The middle berth with no.4 shed was almost completed by 1937, then work commenced on the upper berth, which was to contain sheds 1-3. This was completed in 1939.
For the wharves, a reinforced concrete base was laid on the rock at the river's edge, with timber piles rammed into the riverbed. Large hardwood timbers were used for the walings and decking, which extended about 24 feet (8 metres) out over the river. Hundreds of thousands of feet of timber - mostly hardwoods such as ironbark, blue gum, yellow stringybark, spotted gum and messmate - were required to build the berths.
The road widening behind the sheds, which necessitated the cutting back of the New Farm cliffs, was completed by 1938.
As work continued on the lower berth into 1940, the Second World War intervened. By 1942 the men working on the Petrie Bight works were transferred to other projects more directly connected with the war effort, and work on the wharves was closed down. The third berth appears never to have been completed. A 1945 plan of the site shows the upper and middle berths complete but the lower berth still without any timber decking for wharfage.
In 1941-42 the Brisbane City Council constructed five air-raid shelters near the Howard Smith Wharves below the cliff face, for the Bureau of Industry. The threat of invasion by Japan appeared very real at the time, there was a substantial workforce employed at the wharves, and the site was located adjacent to the Story Bridge - a prime target in wartime. Three of the shelters were the usual 'pillbox' style built by the City Council at many places in the inner city and in the suburbs. This was a standard type, rectangular in plan and constructed of concrete. However, the other two shelters at the Howard Smith Wharves were constructed of large stormwater pipes with multiple entrances. The Brisbane City Council used concrete stormwater pipes to cover the slit trenches in the Botanic Gardens and Victoria Park, but no other air raid shelters of the 'pipe' type have been identified in Brisbane. It is not known why the two different types of shelters were constructed at the Howard Smith Wharves.
Howard Smith signed a 21 year lease over the Brisbane Central Wharves site in 1936. After this lease expired the company made the inevitable move in the early 1960s to better facilities downstream at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Water Police then occupied part of the site [the office building and several sheds], and Queensland Works Department has used the site for storage for many years. Vehicles impounded by the police were stored here as well.
A large part of the timber decking from both the upper and middle berths was washed away during the 1974 floods.
Most of the wharves which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the central city have been demolished in the riverside re-developments of the last 20 years. The former Howard Smith Wharves remain one of the few surviving, and the most intact, with office, sheds and wharfage.
The Story Bridge:
This steel and concrete cantilevered bridge was constructed between 1935 and 1940 by contractors Evans Deakin-Hornibrook for the Queensland Government.
As early as January 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council's Cross River Commission had recommended the construction of a bridge at Kangaroo Point. Due to sectarian interests and prohibitive costs, however, the council chose instead to erect the Grey Street Bridge in 1929-32.
In 1933 the new Queensland Labor Government amended the Bureau of Industry Act, permitting the establishment of a Bridge Board chaired by JR Kemp, Commissioner for Main Roads, to plan a government-constructed toll bridge at Kangaroo Point.
Premature in terms of traffic requirements, the bridge was promoted as an employment-generating scheme. It was one of three such projects undertaken by the Queensland Government in the mid-1930s, the others being the Stanley River Dam and the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia.
Dr JCC Bradfield, designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was appointed consulting engineer on 1 January 1934. He chose JA Holt as supervising engineer for the design of the bridge and supervision of the contract. Design and site surveys were undertaken in 1934.
Although modelled on the Montreal Harbour Bridge, completed in 1930, Bradfield emphasised that the grey steel elevation of the bridge was designed to harmonise with Brisbane's natural skyline.
Tenders for the Kangaroo Point Bridge were called in January 1935. The contract was let to Evans Deakin-Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd, with a price of £1,154,000, and construction commenced in May.
The Story Bridge remains the largest steel bridge designed and built mostly by Australians from Australian materials. Approximately 95 per cent of the materials used were of Australian manufacture, and 89 per cent of the cost of works was expended in Queensland.
All the steelwork, approximately 12,000 tonnes, was fabricated at the Rocklea workshop of Evans, Deakin & Co. Ltd. One truss of each type of approach span, and all joints of the main bridge, were assembled at the workshop then dismantled before removal, ensuring there were no difficulties in erecting the steelwork on site.
The concrete work and erection of the superstructure was carried out on site by the MR Hornibrook organisation.
The bridge was constructed simultaneously from both ends, with the main piers erected first. Excavations for the southern pier necessitated men working in watertight airlock chambers within steel caissons up to 40 metres below ground level. This was the deepest airlock work done in Australia at the time.
The approach spans were erected by a hammer-head crane operating along a runway. Then the anchor-cantilever trusses were erected in five stages using a 40 tonne derrick crane running on a temporary track on the bridge deck. Finally the bridge was closed using a system of wedge devices inserted in the top and bottom chords of each truss at the ends of the suspended span.
During 1938, which was the busiest period of construction, close to 400 persons were employed in the workshops, offices and on site.
From mid-1935 to 1940 the bridge was known as the Jubilee Bridge, honouring George V, but when opened on 6 July 1940 it was named after JD Story, the Public Service Commissioner and a member of the Bridge Board. The designer and the chairman of the Bridge Board were honoured in the naming of the southern approach viaduct as the Bradfield Highway and the northern approach as Kemp Place.
Although an engineering success, the bridge was regarded initially as a white elephant, the toll being unpopular and the traffic demand negligible. Not until the arrival of American troops in 1942 was the Story Bridge fully utilised. Nevertheless, the final cost of £1.6 million was recuperated within seven years, and in 1947 the bridge was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and the toll was removed.
The Story Bridge has become one of Brisbane's most widely recognised landmarks. Its illumination, carried out by SEQEB in time for the 1986 Warana festival, reflects its unique status as a symbol of the city.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
It's c1912 and the peace and quiet of this quiet Mundesley cul-de-sac has just been shattered by a noisy machine from the past. No, not my Focus ST, although that is a dirty and noisy old thing. Meanwhile, back at the end of 2019 a group of M&GN staff pose on and around their Hudswell Clarke 4-4-0T, which will probably annoy that elderly chap peering out of the window of his bungalow.
Thanks to Tim Thirst for supplying the original image(s).
Apologies for the fuzzy nature of this - the map is 'tipped in'to a very tightly bound guide book and I didn't want to damage either map or book. However - some interesting stuff tucked away on this late 1911 or early 1912 map - dated from the guide and also the Bank - Liverpool St section of the Central shown as under construction : this was to open in 1912. As usual with maps of this period there's the usual selection of now closed (such as Brompton Rd) and renamed (Dover St - now Green Park) stations, along with lines and services now long lost. This includes the Hammersmith curve that is seen showing a Metropolitan (H&C) route through Turnham Green to Kew & Richmond. One fine touch is the banner - "London UndergrounD Railways", an early use of the system name, even though at this date many of the railways shown (such as the City & South London Railway and the Central London Railways) were independent companies who had agreed to market the system with the Underground Electric Railways to better manage competition and connectivity. That said, within just over a year, in 1913, the two aforementioned companies were formally taken over by the UERL whose lines were better known as the London Electric Railways. The map is even 'plainer' than the previous 1911 version as afr as I can see as even less 'background' topographical information is shown.
A page from the wonderfully detailed Bacon's Atlas of London & Suburbs, this being dated from c1912 by one of the 'special maps' bound in at the front of the atlas. The bulk of London is covered in a series of map sheets at 4" to the mile and is very detailed giving a clear indication of the pre-WW1 city, in its full Victorian and Edwardian splendour but before the massive inter-war expansion into 'Metroland' and similar suburbs.
Bacon's was formed by one George Washington Bacon (1830–1922), an American who set up business in London producing atlases and maps of the capital in about 1870 after a series of business failures. G W Bacon prospered and in c1900 were acquired by the Scottish publishers and cartographers W.& A.K. Johnston of whom they became a subsidiary.
This, the eastern section of plate 4, shows Wembley and surrpounding areas that shows, along with the various railway lines that include the LNWR west coast mainline along with the Metropolitan Railway and the extension of the District (now Piccadilly line) through Alperton. The map shows that although some development had already started around stations much of this part of Middlesex was still farmland and open fields. This would change enormously in the inter-war years. One thing does stand out - Wembley Park, the 'pleasure grounds' that had been set out to accomodate the Tower, London's answer to Paris and Blackpool, that never got above the first stage and was subsequently demolished. The site was, of course, to be developed for the 1924 Empire Exhibition and the Wembley Stadium that is still located here.
Mission, BC Canada
Downstream from the dam: the MV Shirley, a tug used on the reservoirs to gather up timber and debris.
The Power House at Stave Falls is owned and operated by BC Hydro. The Stave Falls Dam and Powerhouse were constructed from 1909 and completed on January 1, 1912 with the purpose of providing hydro-electricity to the Lower Mainland. A few years after construction at Stave Falls was complete, construction of another dam (Ruskin Dam) downstream from Stave Falls began in order to cope with the growing demand.
The Stave Falls Powerhouse, originally built in 1912, now operates as a museum/educational facility.
The Power House at Stave Falls and informative visitor center are now open for the public to find out about how hydro-electricity is generated and to take a look at some of the huge machinery needed for such a job and in recognition of the historical importance of this site it was designated a National Heritage Site in 2004.
This image is best viewed in Large screen.
Thank-you for your visit, and please know that any faves or comments are always greatly appreciated!
Sonja
A page from the wonderfully detailed Bacon's Atlas of London & Suburbs, this being dated from c1912 by one of the 'special maps' bound in at the front of the atlas. The bulk of London is covered in a series of map sheets at 4" to the mile and is very detailed giving a clear indication of the pre-WW1 city, in its full Victorian and Edwardian splendour but before the massive inter-war expansion into 'Metroland' and similar suburbs.
Bacon's was formed by one George Washington Bacon (1830–1922), an American who set up business in London producing atlases and maps of the capital in about 1870 after a series of business failures. G W Bacon prospered and in c1900 were acquired by the Scottish publishers and cartographers W.& A.K. Johnston of whom they became a subsidiary.
One of the special plates shows the London Postal Districts and includes a list of the district sorting offices. This is before the 1917 changes that introduced an alpha-numeric system, largely based on these old geographical areas, that survived until the 1960s introduction of UK postcodes.
HD Source
from an undated photo in the City of Boston Archives labelled 'Hyde Park Avenue'.
www.flickr.com/photos/cityofbostonarchives/27465284332/in...
Commentary
In The Morton Business Block (20 mostly wood frame building constructed in late 1890s) - often referred to as 'the Flat iron Block' due to its shape.
The Forest Hills Hotel built, probably just after the (Boston and Providence) New Haven RR right away was raised by viaduct off of street level crossings from downtown Boston thru Forest Hills). It sits on a diagonal lot due to the creation of Walk Hill St connecting Hyde Park Av and Washington Streets.
10 lots south of the Hotel on Hyde Park Av is The Tollgate Inn and then the newly opened ,1910, Forest Hills Transportation Building.
Lots of children to-and-fro from Frances Parkman School a few blocks behind viewer. Probably about 2:30 on a dreary Winter afternoon and school's out.
The Hotel looks very quiet with guests yet to arrive and extended stay residents of whom there were many away at work. Trash litters the gutters and the neighborhood looks more than a bit worn out and neglected.
To the left on Walk Hill St a horse drawn delivery is unloading kegs of beer and spirits to the Hotel Bar.
Just beyond the delivery cart is a glimpse of Washington Street. From the viewers perspective Washington Street to the left heads south, turns abruptly right under the New Haven Railroad bridge and on south to Roslindale. (the path as well of the Arborway/Forest Hills trolley cars to Roslindale, Dedham and Charles River). Washington St to the viewer's right goes north a block under the elevated yards to Forest Hills Station and then Arborway and on into Roxbury and Boston. Barely visible, two people in a 1910 era open flivver are heading south on Washington St getting ready to make the right turn under the railroad bridge.
Above the automobile and Washington street is a glimpse of the newly constructed (opened 1910) elevated structure and one of the first-generation elevated train cars. This area (just south of Forest Hills Station) contained the storage, repair, and marshalling yards of the elevated line into Boston, the northern terminus being Sullivan Square. The photo shows parked elevated cars up against the bumper stops and this dates the picture to soon after the elevated opened (1910), before the car shops were ready for use a bit further south in the yard.
The #112 Elevated outbound trolley on Hyde Park Av has just left the Arborway via Forest Hills Station heading south on Hyde Park Av. (probably to Cleary Square) and if you can see is designated a 'prepayment car'. (tokens). Hyde Park is single tracked heading south up to this point with northbound returning cars turning at Walk Hill St. as shown, then right onto the short stretch of Washington Street leading up to Forest Hills Station.
The Hotel was listed for sale Sep 1920, and I am unable to locate any further mention of it in the local, contemporary newspapers.
A page from the wonderfully detailed Bacon's Atlas of London & Suburbs, this being dated from c1912 by one of the 'special maps' bound in at the front of the atlas. The bulk of London is covered in a series of map sheets at 4" to the mile and is very detailed giving a clear indication of the pre-WW1 city, in its full Victorian and Edwardian splendour but before the massive inter-war expansion into 'Metroland' and similar suburbs.
Bacon's was formed by one George Washington Bacon (1830–1922), an American who set up business in London producing atlases and maps of the capital in about 1870 after a series of business failures. G W Bacon prospered and in c1900 were acquired by the Scottish publishers and cartographers W.& A.K. Johnston of whom they became a subsidiary.
This supplementary sheet, 1A, has been added to the atlas to show Edgware and the surrounding area, probably as dvelopment was starting to creep out this far into Middlesex thanks to the railways (the Metropolitan and the London & North Western Railway appear in the SE corner - the now closed GNR Edgware branch terminates in the village centre) and the tram route that was extended out to Edgware along what was to become the A5. The Stanmore station that is shown is, of course, that of the LNWR, the branch that was closed in the 1960s and not the branch of the Metropolitan that was to be constructed in the 1930s and that would irrevocably alter these open fields. Apart from the villages of Kenton and Edgware the main feature seems to be the local sewage farm!
The Howard Smith Wharves were constructed 1934-early 1940s by the Queensland government to provide relief work during the depression years of the 1930s. Initially known as the Brisbane Central Wharves, the project was undertaken in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of the Forgan-Smith government's principal employment-generating projects. Like other such schemes, the Brisbane Central Wharves not only provided employment, but established important infrastructure for Queensland's future development. Brisbane Central Wharves were leased by the Australian coastal shipping company Howard Smith Co. Ltd from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, and are more usually referred to as the Howard Smith Wharves.
The site had an even earlier connection with Howard Smith, as the Brisbane Central Wharves replaced smaller wharves constructed in the early years of the 20th century by Brisbane Wharves Ltd, for lease by William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd].
The construction of wharves beyond Circular Quay was part of the gradual move downstream of port facilities at Brisbane, in a process which began in the 1840s. Following the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in 1842, commercial wharf facilities were erected at South Brisbane, which offered more direct access for Darling Downs and Ipswich commodities than the north bank of the river where the government wharf [Queen's Wharf] was located. By 1850 there were 5 commercial wharves on the south side of the Brisbane River.
However, following the declaration of Brisbane as a port of entry in 1846, a customs house was built in Queen Street near the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, on the north side of the river at Petrie Bight. From this time, the Town Reach rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. In the late 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between Petrie Bight and Alice Street, near the botanic gardens. To encourage private business activity the colonial government and Brisbane Municipal Council also built wharves along Petrie Bight in the 1870s and leased them to shipping companies. By 1900 the Brisbane Municipal Council owned a string of wharves from the custom's house to Boundary Street.
Private companies constructed wharves further downstream at New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead from the early 1900s. In the 1920s-30s the government built railway wharves at Pinkenba, branch rail lines to Teneriffe and Hamilton, and the state cold stores and reinforced concrete wharves at Hamilton. After the Story Bridge was opened in 1940 most large overseas and interstate vessels did not use the wharves at the Town Reach. Hamilton became the heart of Brisbane's port, and the part of the river from the South Brisbane Reach, round the Town Reach to Petrie Bight lost the ascendancy it had around the turn of the century. Since the 1960s, most of Brisbane's port activity has relocated to the mouth of the river.
In the 1880s William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd] leased the Commercial Wharf on the Town Reach from the Brisbane Municipal Council. Howard Smith was one of several important shipping companies which traded on the Australian coast from the mid-19th century, and was one of the earliest. The business was established in Melbourne in 1854 by Captain William Howard Smith, and in the second half of the 19th century developed as one of the dominant companies in the Australian coastal shipping trade. Initially the firm traded between Melbourne and England, but in 1860 entered the inter-colonial trade, and from 1864 concentrated solely on this. Howard Smith was trading in central Queensland by the early 1870s, and in the 1880s extended its operations to northern Queensland. In the 1890s, the firm entered into a strong rivalry with other coastal shipping companies for the lucrative intra- and inter-colonial passenger trade.
In the late 1890s, Howard Smith moved downstream from the Commercial Wharves to the Brisbane City Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie Bight, and in the early years of the 20th century leased adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs. These wharves were extended c1912 and in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government and rebuilt as the Brisbane Central Wharves.
The resumption and rebuilding of the Brisbane Central Wharves was an adjunct to the construction of the Story Bridge between Kangaroo Point and Fortitude Valley. As part of the bridge project the state government had resolved to improve the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, by widening it to a uniform width of 800 feet (240 m), deepening the draught to about 26 feet (8 m), and improving the river approaches. This necessitated demolishing the existing wharves and sheds at the Brisbane Central Wharves, excavating the cliff below Bowen Terrace, and widening the river at this point by up to 70 feet (21 metres). The path of the river was cut back and made smoother. Three chords were planned around the bend in the river, each providing a berth of about 500 feet (152 m). The total work, described in the 1935 Annual Report of the Bureau of Industry (the government body in charge of the project), was estimated to cost in excess of £400,000.
Work on the scheme commenced in 1934 and continued into the early 1940s. In January 1935 the existing wharf facilities occupied by Howard Smith Co. Ltd were resumed, along with a disused wharf upstream owned by the Brisbane City Council. The construction of the wharves was undertaken using day labour, and was staged over several years so that port activity could continue.
The first of the new structures erected was a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building completed by 1936 as offices for Howard Smith Co. Ltd. It was located on the waterfront, and commanded excellent views of the Town and Shafton Reaches of the Brisbane River.
Three berths with five new storage sheds were planned. Each of the gabled sheds was constructed primarily of hardwood timber, and sheeted and roofed with timber boards and corrugated iron. Sliding doors within these sheds opened towards the river for the handling of cargo. Sheds nos.1-3 were located at the upper berth under the Story Bridge, the middle berth accommodated the large no.4 shed [double-gabled , twice as wide as the others, and much longer], and no.5 shed was located at the lower berth downstream. No.5 shed was the first to be erected and a temporary wharf constructed. The middle berth with no.4 shed was almost completed by 1937, then work commenced on the upper berth, which was to contain sheds 1-3. This was completed in 1939.
For the wharves, a reinforced concrete base was laid on the rock at the river's edge, with timber piles rammed into the riverbed. Large hardwood timbers were used for the walings and decking, which extended about 24 feet (8 metres) out over the river. Hundreds of thousands of feet of timber - mostly hardwoods such as ironbark, blue gum, yellow stringybark, spotted gum and messmate - were required to build the berths.
The road widening behind the sheds, which necessitated the cutting back of the New Farm cliffs, was completed by 1938.
As work continued on the lower berth into 1940, the Second World War intervened. By 1942 the men working on the Petrie Bight works were transferred to other projects more directly connected with the war effort, and work on the wharves was closed down. The third berth appears never to have been completed. A 1945 plan of the site shows the upper and middle berths complete but the lower berth still without any timber decking for wharfage.
In 1941-42 the Brisbane City Council constructed five air-raid shelters near the Howard Smith Wharves below the cliff face, for the Bureau of Industry. The threat of invasion by Japan appeared very real at the time, there was a substantial workforce employed at the wharves, and the site was located adjacent to the Story Bridge - a prime target in wartime. Three of the shelters were the usual 'pillbox' style built by the City Council at many places in the inner city and in the suburbs. This was a standard type, rectangular in plan and constructed of concrete. However, the other two shelters at the Howard Smith Wharves were constructed of large stormwater pipes with multiple entrances. The Brisbane City Council used concrete stormwater pipes to cover the slit trenches in the Botanic Gardens and Victoria Park, but no other air raid shelters of the 'pipe' type have been identified in Brisbane. It is not known why the two different types of shelters were constructed at the Howard Smith Wharves.
Howard Smith signed a 21 year lease over the Brisbane Central Wharves site in 1936. After this lease expired the company made the inevitable move in the early 1960s to better facilities downstream at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Water Police then occupied part of the site [the office building and several sheds], and Queensland Works Department has used the site for storage for many years. Vehicles impounded by the police were stored here as well.
A large part of the timber decking from both the upper and middle berths was washed away during the 1974 floods.
Most of the wharves which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the central city have been demolished in the riverside re-developments of the last 20 years. The former Howard Smith Wharves remain one of the few surviving, and the most intact, with office, sheds and wharfage.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Chocolat d'Aiguebelle "European Royalty & Palaces" series of 12 issued c1912
No10 Czar Nicholas II of Russia and the Royal Palace, Peterhof
A page from the wonderfully detailed Bacon's Atlas of London & Suburbs, this being dated from c1912 by one of the 'special maps' bound in at the front of the atlas. The bulk of London is covered in a series of map sheets at 4" to the mile and is very detailed giving a clear indication of the pre-WW1 city, in its full Victorian and Edwardian splendour but before the massive inter-war expansion into 'Metroland' and similar suburbs.
Bacon's was formed by one George Washington Bacon (1830–1922), an American who set up business in London producing atlases and maps of the capital in about 1870 after a series of business failures. G W Bacon prospered and in c1900 were acquired by the Scottish publishers and cartographers W.& A.K. Johnston of whom they became a subsidiary.
This is the western side of sheet 1 and shows the country around Edgware and Mill Hill, still remarkably undeveloped although hints of growth along the corridor of Edgware Road, then a tram route, are starting to show. The map is dominated by the early 'London Aerodrome' and for many years this part of London was indeed associated with aircraft and the aircraft business. The Midland Main Line is a definate feature heading north - south across the area and is itself crossed by the now lost Great Northern Railway's Edgware branch - the line that should have been electrified as part of LT's 'New Works Programme 1935 - 1940" and become part of the Northern line's extensions but that was cut back to Mill Hill East. The actual Northern line has yet to appear - slicing its way up through Colindale's near vacant fields adjacent to The Hyde.
ID
3455
Listing Date
16 March 1976
History
The large-scale development of Llandudno as a seaside resort originates from the late 1840s. In 1846, Owen Williams, born on Anglesey, but in business at Liverpool is said to have proposed a resort to John Williams agent of the Mostyn family who had sponsored the enclosure of the common land below the Great Orme. A fisherman's hut below the Great Orme was the meeting place where Owen Williams and The Hon T E M Lloyd Mostyn MP developed the idea. Plans were drawn up by Wehnert & Ashdown, architects and surveyors, of Charing Cross, London. Leases were offered for sale on 29 August 1849.
The St George's Hotel was amongst the first buildings on the Parade, and opened in 1854. It was built for Isaiah Davies, a local man who had inherited the King's Head public house; he allegedly obtained this prime site by cancelling the drinking debts of Mostyn agent John Williams. St George's Crescent was built as a terrace of symmetrical composition which has undergone some later alterations, eg addition of attic storeys, alterations to Wave Crest Hotel and to St Georges’s Hotel. Originally each end block, namely parts of St George’s Hotel and Queen’s Hotel, were of five bays width facing sea; this part of St George’s Hotel now of nine bays width having assimilated an adjacent 5-window unit. The hotel was extended towards the W from 1878. As one of the the most prestigious hotels in Llandudno, guests have included Disraeli, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Bismarck, Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie.
Exterior
Hotel. Stucco with rusticated ground floor; slate roof. Three storeys, on basement, plus attic. All sash windows have been replaced by metal casement glazing. Corner block with 9 windows to Parade, 3 windows to St George's Place.
Giant order of Corinthian pilasters to first and second floors; crowing entablature. Above the entablature there is an attic storey with plain pilasters and moulded cornice. Windows with stuccoed shouldered architraves on second floor, first floor sash windows with moulded architraves, and with alternate triangular or segmental pediments on consoles. Ground floor to Parade covered by galzed loggia with balustrade and Ionic columns, deep fascia board; elaborate iron rails to first floor balcony over.
The hotel has taken in the formerly separate building to L. Five windows. At attic level, central dormer with triangular pediment paired sashes; outer bays have dormer (relief decoration) with semi-circular pediments and single sash windows. Modillion cornice. Moulded band course between cornice and 2nd floor windows. Second floor windows are all 12-pane sashes in lugged architraves. On first floor, sashes without glazing bars in moulded architraves; central window has segmental pediment. Central doorway with 2 sash windows to each side covered by glazed verandah.
In St George's Place, centre bay of 3-window block has steps (granite balusters) up to porch with paired granite columns; granite facing to entrance. To R of this, 5-storey tower with hipped roof and round-headed window; 3 round-headed windows at attic level; 2 windows on 3rd, 2nd, 1st floors; bow window below. To R of this, block of 4 storeys and attic, 8 windows; segmental pediments to attic dormers, bracketed cornice; on first floor alternating 1-light and tripartite windows with segmental pediments; on ground floor, alternating bow windows and single-light windows; porch in end bay. Balustraded forecourt walls and piers in St George's Place.
Three storeys and attic. Each end block with sash windows with flat beads on ground floor. There is an ornate iron work balcony parapet of c1912 before first floor of the St George’s Hotel.
Interior
Although some rooms have been combined, retains cornices etc generally Baroque in style. Grand dining room (early C20?) in Adam style with low-relief frieze, swags, panelling etc.
Reasons for Listing
The earliest of the major hotels on Llandudno sea front, which is the most important part of the planned Victorian seaside resort of Llandudno. Group value with adjacent listed buildings.
britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/300003455-st-georges-hotel-s...