There are intriguing references to a location called Sailors' Gully in Brisbane's Highgate Hill over a 30 year period at the end of the 19th century. A 1930s description mentions runaway sailors living here in tents and later building houses. My research has identified four of the sailors who gave it this name, and revealed their stories.
1880 – 1900
The Fraught Beginnings of St Andrew’s South Brisbane
In the 1870s, Anglican parishioners of South Brisbane were looking for a large elevated site on which to build a new church, hall and rectory. Their innovative plan wasn't to be completed for 13 years, and then only due to a nasty divorce.
Glenview – An 1883 Highgate Hill House
We've lived in our house now for almost 40 years. In this post I describe Glenview's origins and some of the people who have lived here, as well our journey through restoration and maintenance of this old house.
Sabbath Wars
Today, Sunday is a day of leisure for many, while others work and earn penalty-rate wages. This situation evolved slowly over a long period of time from the position of any work or public leisure activities on a Sunday being an anathema to most and often illegal. There was along the way angst, stale bread, and ripped up cricket pitches.
“Trevenen” – the Life and Death of a Highgate Hill House
The story of the large house Trevenen on Westbourne Street Highgate Hill follows a pattern that is all too familiar. Built between the 1870s and 1880s to house a large affluent family, it was modernised in the 1920s when it enjoyed its social heyday. Trevenen became a mixed family home and flats for some years before being divided into 7 flats for over 60 years. Over time, its condition has steadily deteriorated and demolition has been approved.
The story of an intersection: Boundary and Vulture Streets, West End
The corner of Boundary and Vulture Streets in West End has been a centre of local commerce since the 1880s. This post traces the history of the intersection and the people who had their businesses there.
Say Tristram’s Please !
The son of a soldier sent to Australia, Thomas Tristram started his own soft drink business at an early age. After his death, managed by the family, Tristram's became a household name, before falling victim to the changing structure of the industry.
The Trials and Tribulations of Thomas Dixon
Thomas Dixon certainly had a lot of ups and downs. In 1885, he lost all 5 of his tannery and boot-making buildings in a fire, the 1893 flood swept away a tannery building, in 1908 another fire destroyed a major building with all its equipment, and finally a blaze in 1952 destroyed a large amount of stock. Despite weathering a crisis from cheap imports in the 1930s, it succumbed to the same issue 50 years later.
James Cole and the West End Can Factory
James Cole establish a small tinsmith business in 1885. His firm, later the Queensland Can Company, steadily grew over the years at its Vulture Street, West End, location to become a major local employer. The remaining buildings are a reminder of this industrial heritage.
Dornoch Terrace – A Pathway Through Time Part 1
Few of those travelling up and down Dornoch Terrace realise that they are following a path that has been in use for tens of thousands of years. Since the arrival of Europeans , the pathway through the bush has been transformed to a rough dirt track, then to a genteel residential dress circle and finally to a heavily trafficked and at times dangerous thoroughfare. This is its story.
Highgate Hill and Its History 