23rd March 2019
How many ghosts does your house have?
What kind of characters owned your property since it was built in 1895? Your house was once divided up into how many flats?!
These are some of the many questions which have been asked of Emma and husband Andrew in the years that they’ve been living in one […]
by Ross Garnett
Renovating an old house can present many challenges and surprises.
When we renovated some 30 years back, our ‘surprise’ was the amount of oily soot that fell when we removed the sheeting off the ceiling – soot from many years of the Powerhouse billowing out smoke!
However, we didn’t find anything interesting as […]
23rd February 2019
Guest Speaker: Caylie Jeffery
You’re renovating your old New Farm Queenslander and after you pull up the lino, you can’t help taking a closer look at the newspaper underneath which is in remarkably good condition.Suddenly, you’re shocked to see a photo of your parents’ wedding from 50 years ago!
That’s the kind of thing that […]
IN the November NFDHS Newsletter you may have read the article (p 6) about the three ex-felons who proved to be the first white men to see the Brisbane River (1823).
After trekking about 40km along the southern side of the wide stream, the men discovered a native canoe which enabled them to cross the river.
A […]
24th November 2018
Once upon a time there was a modest learning institution in Moray Street, affectionately dubbed ‘The Little School that Time Forgot’. The New Farm Private School was established around 1893 and in 1900 it came under the charge of 23-year-old Miss Jeanette Stevenson.
Just before he died, Jeanette’s father William, a builder of Abbott […]
3rd Nov 2018
Both Brisbane and Fremantle saw scores of allied submarines based in these ports during the war years. A large facility was created in New Farm and Teneriffe, with thousands of submarine crews being accommodated in Brisbane. Speaker Roy Stall is one of the volunteer tour guides for the HMAS Ovens on the slipway […]
It’s an unprepossessing building on Brunswick Street. A yellow-and-red facade set north of the busy mall, with buses and cars rushing past at all hours of the day and night.
There’s nothing to tell the passer-by that a group of determined women once scraped together the funds to buy the building, or that it is a […]
13th October 2018
Unlock the history of the Winchcombe Carson Woolstore, the oldest surviving woolstore in Queensland. This attractive Federation era design building contains over one million bricks!
Following the demise of the wool industry, parts of the woolstore were used for various commercial and storage uses between 1981 and 2001, and then converted into its present […]
September 2018 marks the 120-year anniversary of the opening of McWhirter & Son, the cash drapery that went on to become one of Queensland’s biggest and best-loved department stores.
In 1894, my great-great grandfather James McWhirter senior began working for T.C. Beirne in his namesake business, and would stay there for four years – three of […]
13th October 2018
Not that long ago, the narrow spaces around Fortitude Valley were just that — spaces, not vibrant laneways.
These days, however, the area boasts not one, not two, but now three jam-packed alleys. Yes, that’s a development that’s worth celebrating.
In fact, it’s a change worthy of a day-long festival, which is exactly what the […]
