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Early Houses in Toowong Shire D-F

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The Dell, situated in Glen Road, Toowong. Was built on land that was once owned by   Robert Cribb and later his brother Benjamin. – owned by the Sapsford family for over 130 continuous years it has been owned and occupied by different members of four generations of one family. Ruth Sapsford is an active member of TDHS and has written a book about the house. To read more about this historic house see here

Dovercourt c. 1863 at 124 Sherwood Road, Toowong. The house was built for William Henry Ellerker and then later the  home of Hon. Horatio  Wilson then purchased by WA Forth. It is still in existence and in 2023 a new owner commenced renovations.  Harold Peacock published a book about the house in 2021. For more information about the house and renovations see here

Dovercourt 23 August 2005

Dryswllyn later Raymond Lodge – 47 Cadell St, Auchenflower. The house was designed by architect Claude William Chambers and constructed for Welshman William Davies esq in 1903. The house is named after an area in Wales in the Carmarthenshire district.  In 1946 the Albert St Methodist Church purchased Drysllwyn and renamed it Raymont Lodge and it became a hostel for young women undergoing education and training.

Dunara – 35 Penrose St – The house was constructed in 1892 on the highest point of what is now Penrose St (formerly Riverview Terrace)

Dunmore House – commenced in 1854 and built by Robert Cribb part of a 92 acre estate at Auchenflower owned by Robert Cribb. On Coronation Drive near Lang Parade.

Easton Grey – originally built by FDG Stanley who owned a sizeable property on the north side of Stanley Terrace and known as Stanley off what is now Stanley Terrace

Ecksleigh –  , a property bounded by Camp, Exmouth, Duke, and Market Streets, was owned by JB Fewing’s daughter, Ethel Charlotte Maud Munro Hull

Esk Mount – located on Aston St, Toowong

Eskmount

Fairseat – situated on the heights of Birdwood Terrace

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Early Houses in Toowong Shire A-C

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Compiled by Philippa Stanford. Research by Leigh Chamberlain, Nick Feros and Genean Wildestein.

This is an ongoing piece of research and will be updated as we get more information and photos.

Abbotsbury Toowong (Cnr Milton road and Croydon street).

Constructed around 1876 the first occupant I can find was a Mr.C.S.Russell, the first secretary of the Queensland Club. Then came the Merrington’s and followed by Dr. Arthur Stanley Roe, the son of the 2nd and longest standing headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School.
This  house  was removed from Croydon street  in several pieces and relocated to Pullenvale. The  Status Quo apartments were built on the original Toowong location with Tusitala at 38 Croydon street  built on the tennis court of Abbotsbury.
Composite image from Qimagery and various real estate websites.
 

Airdrie on the corner of Coronation Drive and Landsborough Terrace (previously Paradise Ave) near the Regatta Hotel.

Courtesy Helen Benson whose great grandparents AS Barr and Family lived here

Family photo courtesy of Helen Benson

Mr Alexander Samson Barr and Mrs Annie Brown Barr lived at Airdrie, River Road, Toowong with their children in 1916.

 

Ardencraig Church St now Jephson St, Toowong.

“Ardencraig” was the residence of FDG Stanley (1838-1897), acclaimed 19th century Queensland architect, and was situated on Church (now Jephson) Street, Toowong. Fashionable Stanley followed the fashion of those who were notable in Brisbane Society by installing a telescope, in common with Toowong resident and architect Richard Gailey who had done likewise at “Glenolive” in Brisbane Street, Toowong.   There were two “Ardencraigs”, actually, as the house Stanley had built burnt down, and was replaced by a second residence.

Ardencraig was the original home of Churchie (Anglican Church Grammar School) in 1912 before it moved to East Brisbane. It was placed for sale in 1924 as part of the Ardencraig House and Grounds Estate. The home was later owned by the MacDonnell family.  Franic MacDonnell was a bookseller in Queen St. Their youngest son John Edward died in France in April 1918 and his name is on the Toowong memorial. Madeleine O’Hagan nee MacDonnell lived at Ardencraig until she married in 1919.

Later owned by Charles Elliott and Family. There was a fire in the mid 1960s which destroyed part of the house. The then owners sold the property and a unit block was built in its place.   The damaged house was removed and restored to its former glory in its new location outside of Brisbane.

 

Arley the Archer family residence in the 1880s.

Horse and carriage outside the Archer family residence, Arley, Toowong, ca. 1882. Image courtesy SLQ

Alexander and Minnie Archer lived in Toowong and gave their name to Archer Street. Alexander Archer (1828-1890), was the manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Brisbane and a member of the Queensland pioneering Archer family. Sadly the Archer family of Arley, in Archer Street, Toowong died on the RMS Quetta. On February 28th in 1890, the RMS Quetta hit an uncharted granite rock in the Adolphus Channel in Torres Strait at 9.14 pm on a clear night travelling towards Thursday Island from Cooktown. The damage to the hull was a gash 6ft wide by 175 ft. long from the bow to the engine room amidships. She plunged to the bottom in less than three minutes and of the 292 persons on board, 152 were lost and 139 saved.

Arlington/Endrim – c. 1905/1906. 28 Woodstock Rd, Toowong. Home of Badger

Arlington, 1906. Photographed by Frederick Munro Hull and courtesy of Genevieve Kennett

Arlington, 1906. Photographed by Frederick Munro Hull and courtesy of Genevieve Kennett

Courtesy real estate image

Real Estate image

Joseph Stillman Badger, General Manager of the Brisbane Tramways Company (BTC) moved to Arlington (as it was then known) around 1904. This was when work commenced upon the extension of the tramline from the gates of Brisbane General Cemetery, down Dean Street, and into Woodstock Road to terminate at the (Toowong) Tram Terminus situated just near his front gate.

For more information about Arlington see here

Auchenflower House – built in 1876 for the ironmonger John Ward. situated on the crest of a hill between the railway line and Milton Road, and Ridley and Dixon Streets.

Auchenflower House, 1969, courtesy TROVE

built in 1876 for the ironmonger John Ward. situated on the crest of a hill between the railway line and Milton Road, and Ridley and Dixon Streets. The property known as Auchenflower was purchased by Mr John Warde who built the original Auchenflower House. The property was then purchased by Sir Thomas McIlwraith in 1880 who extended it and christened it Auchenflower giving the suburb its name. For the ten years between 1880-1980  Auchenflower was a centre of social life for the political leaders and those who aspired to politics.  After McIlwraith’s death in 1900 it was sold to the family of  Sir Arthur Palmer. Later purchased by Mrs. TJ Ryan widow of a Queensland premier. Became a Carmelite Monastery in 1927. When the site was cleared for a church in 1967 auchenflower House’s ballroom and billiard room were rebuilt at Norman Park as the centrepiece of ‘Early Street Historical Village’. The rooms today can be found at Tamborine Estate Winery, in the Beaudesert Shire south-west of Brisbane, where they were moved in the 1990s.

For more information see here 

 

Braelands at Bellevue Parade and Ellerslie Crescent, Taringa (previously South Toowong)

Braelands, 1949

The residence of Helen and James Forsythe and later their niece Miss Helen ‘Ivy’ Philp, daughter of Sir Robert Philp. Braelands was commandeered from Miss Helen ‘Ivy’ Bannister Philip for the use General George H Brett during WWII. Miss Philp went to stay with her sister at Mallow in Toowong. Later Miss Ivy Philp sold the land to a group of men who bought it for Albert Street Methodist Church and it was used as a residential hostel for students at UQ.

For more information about Braelands during the war see here

Clayton House – standing on the back of the hill at the end of Patrick Lane

Image courtesy Nick Feros

Standing on the back of the hill at the end of Patrick Lane, Toowong  was Clayton House which was built in 1863. It was previously owned by A. M. G. Patrick who was an officer in the Police Force, but he sold and became the family home of the Dixons ca. 1865. It was the home of Dr   Graham Patrick Dixon (1873-1947) who had a distinguished career as a medical officer in WW1 (Gallipoli and middle east) and, in peace time, as a Brisbane surgeon.   It was also the home of  Dr Dixon’s mother, Louisa Jane Dixon, who died in October 1938 aged 91. The Dixons also operated a boarding house out of Clayton.  JB Fewings boarded here at Clayton before he purchased his property Karslake.

Chatswood on 7 Augustus Street, Toowong.

Chatswood, nd

Three Weatherlale sisters doing needlework on the verandah of their Toowong home, ca. 1918. SLQ image

Chatswood was the home of the Wetherlakes family, George and Elsie Weatherslake and their   daughters, Mavis, Ruth, Marion and Joyce. Marion married the 2nd son of Mr & Mrs Biggs of Dunmore Tce. Biggs was a former councillor for Toowong. The Weatherlakes were the maternal grandparents of Dr Bruce Bigge who had the Fiveways Surgery. The house later became the home of one of the Patterson family.

Curragh Bawn – home of William Landsborough? Curragh Bawn on the hill behind the Current Regatta Hotel

Curragh Bawn, nd

 

 

 

 

 

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Ardencraig and the Stanley Family

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by Leigh Chamberlain
“Ardencraig” was the residence of FDG Stanley (1838-1897), acclaimed 19th century Queensland architect, and was situated on Church (now Jephson) Street, Toowong. Fashionable Stanley followed the fashion of those who were notable in Brisbane Society by installing a telescope, in common with Toowong resident and architect Richard Gailey who had done likewise at “Glenolive” in Brisbane Street, Toowong. (“Glenolive” is now removed and the property is subdivided to form Sandford Street). As well as being used to observe, record, and develop theories to explain weather phenomenon, if positioned advantageously on hilltops, telescopes could also be used to watch in the comfort of one’s home the sailing events held on the St Lucia and Milton Reaches of the Brisbane River. There were two “Ardencraigs”, actually, as the house Stanley had built burnt down, and was replaced by a second residence. Upon that house also suffering a fire in the 1960s the then owners, feeling that they did not wish to take on the worry of repairing the damage, sold the property. The damaged building was subsequently sold for removal, and was replaced by the unit block which still stands here today. TDHS has been in touch with the current owners of Ardencraig 2, and they assure TDHS that the damage was limited and fixable. The house was restored to its former glory, and is located outside Brisbane.

 

 

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Badger’s house ‘Arlington’; now known as ‘Endrim’

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Badger’s house Arlington, Toowong Brisbane

Badger’s house Arlington; now known as Endrim

Address: 28 Woodstock Road, Toowong

Arlington was built in 1905 for American Joseph Stillman Badger. Badger named the house Arlington in honour of the United States National Cemetery. He became known as ‘Boss Badger’.

Badger, a qualified electrical engineer, came to Brisbane in 1896 at the age of forty-five on behalf of the General Electric Company as its chief engineer to oversee the electrification of Brisbane’s out-dated horse-drawn tram network for the Brisbane Tramways Company (BTC).

After the sudden resignation of BTC project manager, Mr Walklate, due to ill health in 1897, the BTC directors approached Badger to become not only BTCs Chief Engineer but also as to assume the duties of General Manager as well. Badger consequently resigned from GE. A proud American , Badger named the house Arlington in honour of the United States National Cemetery.

Arlington house in Toowong, 1906

Arlington, 1906 | Photographed by Frederick Munro Hull and courtesy of Genevieve Kennett [Toowong and District Historical Society Inc.]

Well-known local Toowong resident Percival Hanlon, who used to work at the BTC workshop prior to assuming the lease of the Toowong cross-river ferry, always maintained that the house sat upon tram tracks which were used as bearers. Speculation and rumour circulated Toowong as to whether this story was correct, so when the property eventually came up for sale many locals attended to check this out for themselves. As Hanlon’s son, also named Percival (‘Percy’), later related, ‘I went under the house and there it was!’

Verification that Badger had used tram tracks as bearers for his house did not dispel speculation, but instead added to it. As a result, particularly more recently, locals wondered whether he was using his position at the BTC to cream off monies from the Tramway Company for his advantage. Badger acquired a reputation which could be described in common parlance as being slightly ‘smelly’ and eyebrows were slightly raised at the notion of Badger’s integrity. The speculation resulted in an article being written a couple of years ago in the local newspaper Westside News which described Badger as being ’notorious’, which was the first time such speculation actually was recorded in print as being a fact (and without any supporting primary documents or evidence). Formerly, it was suggested in verbal asides only.

However, reminiscences collected by TDHS in 2003-05 from several elderly former residents, aged between their late 90s to over the age of 100, do not include a suggestion that Badger had a tainted reputation. These included the childhood memories of99 year-old Len Hall in 2003-4 whose parents operated the local shop in Woodstock Road across the road from Badger. So the speculation seemingly appears to be more recent in origin, gaining more credence since the decade 2000-10 when the earlier generation of residents had by this time died.

To further investigate these innuendoes, TDHS examined the title deeds for the property. One person keen to know the truth was Percy Hanlon who did the legwork. The information was passed onto Badger biographer David Burke (then researching for his book titled One American Too many Boss Badger and the Brisbane Trams). David kindly provided the information that the names on the title deeds were board members of the BTC.

This implies that Arlington was financed by the Brisbane Tramways Company, possibly as part of an executive salary package, but Badger appears to have had a free hand in the house’s design as the architecture has an American flavour. It would seem that more than half a century later speculation fueled by ignorance has sullied Badger’s reputation. But at the time the house was built, the fact that the BTC owned the house was well-known, and hence no eyebrows were raised at the mention of Badger’s name at that time. Otherwise, why would the upper echelons of Society so admire Badger, socialize with him, queue up to pay patronage to him and do business with him? Badger’s business acumen was admired far afield, not only in Brisbane, but also in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide and also as far afield as in London and New York.

Prior to living at Arlington, by 1900 Badger and his family (who had joined him from America) lived at ‘Belle Vue’, a large house and property on the hill in Miskin Street, just short distance from where the construction of the tramline along Milton Road to terminate at the Brisbane General Cemetery was in progress. This tramline opened on 22 July 1904. Then Badger moved his family to ‘Arlington’. This was when work commenced upon the extension of the tramline from the gates of Brisbane General Cemetery, down Dean Street, and into Woodstock Road to terminate at the (Toowong) Tram Terminus situated just near his front gate. The Toowong Council had campaigned to extend the tramway down to terminate at Toowong, and there were plans to build more termini along Sherwood Road. But to protect its suburban railway traffic, the Railways Department made sure the track was kept apart from Toowong station and so the extended tramline and termini did not eventuate.

Badger used a gate built into his side fence to walk down concrete stairs built into the steep slope of the ridge to access the tram stop near to his residence where his private tram collected him to go into work. Claims published recently (in 2018) by The Courier-Mail that the Woodstock Road terminus is built upon Badger’s property are incorrect, as the terminus has been built behind the footpath at the base of the hill upon the publicly –owned Miskin Street road reserve.

Endrim House undercroft showing steel tram tracks.

Steel tram track floor bearers in the undercroft of ‘Endrim’ (2016).

A recent photo of the residence now known as ‘Endrim’ (2016). Photographs courtesy of Christopher Sapsford {Toowong and District Historical Society Inc.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Badger was partial to moving. Between 1913-15, he moved again to Hargreaves Road, West End, and later elsewhere. He liked to move to an area where the tramway was being constructed so he was immediately upon the spot to supervise. Badger was very much hands on!

Due to both his role in the electrification and extension of the Brisbane tramway network and his hardline opposition to unionism and the role he played in the lead up to the General Strike of January 1912, the residence has ever since been associated with his name. However, people refer to it as Endrim, the name the property was later called, and not as Arlington.

Endrim has attracted more controversy lately with plans to build a childcare centre being lodged with the Brisbane City Council (BCC). Concerns have been expressed over a wide range of issues, with one being an expected increase in traffic and the another being the impact upon the heritage of the house.

References:

Leigh Chamberlain and Lindy Salter, Toowong; A tram ride from the past, Toowong and District Historical Society Inc., 2018, p.124.
Leigh Chamberlain, Interview with Len Hall, ca. 2003
David Burke, One American too many. Boss Badger and the Brisbane Trams, Queensland Museum, 2012.
Certificates of Title and survey plans, Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying

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Sojourn in Toowong – the Shirley Lahey Story

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Toowong A Tram Ride from the past - books about Toowong by TDHS

Shirley Lahey’s grandparents leased ‘Sidney House’ in 1905 for a short period of time before moving to Indooroopilly. ‘Sidney House’, which boasted a prime riverfront position, was located on River Road (now renamed Coronation Drive) and has since been demolished. In common with many descendants of Toowong’s early families, Shirley has returned to the area and now lives in Taringa.

Shirley’s reminiscences include these family memories:

My paternal grandparents were David Lahey and Jane Jemima (née Walmsley). David was born in 1858 in County Westmeath, Ireland, and Jane was born in Maldon, Victoria, in 1860. They were married in Brisbane in 1881 and had twelve children. One boy died, aged one month. Another son died of wounds in France in 1917, during World War I. Of the remaining ten children, the best known ones are the eldest child, Vida (a noted Australian artist, art advocate and educator) and Romeo, who was known for his lifelong interest in national parks. This included his work towards the reservation of Lamington National Park and the Windsor Tableland and Upper Daintree area of the Daintree National Park as well as being the founder of the National Parks Association of Queensland, the first of its kind in Australia.

David Lahey’s parents and ten siblings migrated from Ireland in 1862. His father Francis was a farmer, first at Coopers Plains, and then at Pimpama, where he was a successful arrowroot farmer. His five sons became interested in sawmilling at Waterford and then, in 1884, David and three of his brothers built a sawmill in Canungra, which developed into the largest softwood mill in Queensland. Later mills were built in other parts of south-east Queensland. Initially, the partnership was called Lahey Brothers, the name later changing several times, but when the company went into voluntary liquidation in 1921, it was named Laheys Limited. Earlier, in 1910, David had set up a sawmill in Corinda, Brisbane, so that his sons would have business opportunities. This company was called Brisbane Timbers Limited.

When David and his wife came to Brisbane to live in 1899, they leased ‘Yeronglea’, the home of the late premier of Queensland, T.J. Byrnes, at Yeronga in Brisbane, where they lived until 1905, when they moved to Toowong and leased ‘Sidney House’, which had been built for Thomas Finney. I believe Finney was the partner in Finney Isles, the store that is now David Jones in Queen Street. The architect of the house (which was named for Finney’s wife, Sidney) was F.D.G. Stanley and its extensive grounds went down to the river.

When the David Laheys lived at ‘Sidney House’, there was a total of about twenty-five people under its roof. Apart from the immediate family, Jane’s mother, unmarried brother and at least one half-sister lived with them. Also there were some of David’s nephews (whose mother had died) and staff (who included a Kanaka who had worked for the Laheys at Pimpama and who stayed with them for the rest of his life, declining to return to his island home). From ‘Sidney House,’ they moved to ‘Greylands’ at Indooroopilly, which they leased for about three years, before building their own home at Corinda, which was called ‘Wonga Wallen’, near the sawmill.

An article featuring more of Shirley Lahey’s memories titled Sojourn in Toowong–the Lahey Story is published in Toowong: A Tram Ride from the Past, Memories of the Toowong Community Vol. 4, ed. Leigh Chamberlain and Lindy Salter, Toowong and District Historical Society, 2008, p.1.

To order a copy of Toowong: A Tram Ride from the Past, please see details on the Publications page.

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