Highgate Hill and Its History

Stories from Brisbane's Inner Southside Past.

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Glenview – An 1883 Highgate Hill House

May 3, 2025December 14, 2025 / Paul's Blogs / 14 Comments

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.

The Three Torbrecks

November 6, 2021June 13, 2023 / Paul's Blogs / 7 Comments

Since the early 1960s, the Torbreck apartment building on Highgate Hill has been a Brisbane landmark. The original Torbreck on the site was demolished in 1958 but another was built nearby by the same family in 1908.

-27.487136 153.014870

Children on the Loose

January 19, 2019May 13, 2022 / Paul's Blogs / Leave a comment

How much society norms regarding the rearing of children have changed is brought home by these stories from not that long ago.

The Yodelling Milk Money Thief and Other Scoundrels

March 18, 2018March 18, 2018 / Paul's Blogs / Leave a comment

Over the years descriptions of a number of unusual Highgate Hill thefts have appeared in newspapers including a yodelling milk money thief and an audacious gas meter thief.

Tennis

December 9, 2017August 21, 2020 / Paul's Blogs / 2 Comments

The first night tennis tournament in Brisbane took place in Highgate Hill in 1924

Who Shot “Spider” Raper? 1926

February 4, 2017August 4, 2020 / Paul's Blogs / Leave a comment

The shooting of a notorious criminal at Highgate Hill made big headlines in 1926. Was the man who pulled the trigger guilty of murder?

Highgate Hill Reservoir 1889

December 17, 2016January 14, 2024 / Paul's Blogs / 6 Comments

Problems with water reticulation in Highgate Hill were solved by the building of a reservoir in 1889. It was gravity fed from Gold Creek dam which had the world’s first concrete stepped spillway.

Recent Posts

Recent Posts

  • Highgate Hill’s “Sailors’ Gully”
  • The Fraught Beginnings of St Andrew’s South Brisbane
  • Pirates in Moreton Bay – and on Highgate Hill
  • Glenview – An 1883 Highgate Hill House
  • Sabbath Wars
  • “Trevenen” – the Life and Death of a Highgate Hill House
  • Charlie “Chiller” Jones – a Kurilpa Lionheart
  • War Comes to West End
  • The story of an intersection: Boundary and Vulture Streets, West End
  • Say Tristram’s Please !
  • The Trials and Tribulations of Thomas Dixon
  • James Cole and the West End Can Factory
  • Dornoch Terrace – A Pathway Through Time Part 2
  • Dornoch Terrace – A Pathway Through Time Part 1
  • The Rosicrucians of Dutton Park
  • Margaret Gregson – The Duchess of Montague Road
  • Getting the mail in Kurilpa
  • The Tragic Tale of Mary Anne Williams
  • The Granvilles come to Brisbane
  • Brisbane – Horse and Carriage
  • Grange House South Brisbane
  • Dishonourable Real Estate Practices of the 1880s
  • Making a Splash 2 – South Brisbane’s Early Swimming Baths
  • Making a Splash – Brisbane’s Floating Swimming Baths
  • All That Glitters – Brisbane Gold Rushes
  • George and Amelia Croft’s South Brisbane Amphitheatre
  • Life with Brisbane’s Trams
  • The Dutton Park Garden Theatre
  • The Lang Family of Rosecliffe Street
  • Tom Garrick and his West End Theatres

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