Unobtrusive and difficult to find one could drive or walk past this house and not know the significance of it. It is hidden away in a small side street just off the Brisbane River and now subsumed by a new generation of Brisbane's housing "gentrification". Now I know "gentrification" is a politically incorrect word in the 21st century but in the middle to late 19th century the large estates aroind the immediate outskirts of what we know as inner Brisbane became "gentrified". There was a time when John Smith was John Smith Esq. Gentleman. In a past time very different to the homogenised society of today the "Gentleman" of Brisbane built their homes on large estates just outside of Brisbane Town. This was the rural retreat from the town. Eskgrove was one of those and close by was Harnworth House and Thomas Mobray's "Riversdale" as well as Shafton House all occupied East Brisbane as we know it today.
This single-storeyed stone residence was erected in 1853 for former Sydney bank manager Archibald Hepburn Hutchinson, on land he had acquired from surveyor James Charles Burnett earlier the same year.[
Burnett had alienated Eastern Suburban Allotments 51-53, a property of just over 12.5 acres (5.1 ha) fronting the Brisbane River near Norman Creek, between November 1851 and December 1852. Whether Burnett resided on this land is not clear. Hutchinson acquired title to all three allotments in February 1853, for the sum of £88/10/1. It is likely that a report in The Moreton Bay Courier of 18 June 1853, mentioning the construction for Mr Hutchinson of a stone building for a dwelling house, on the bank of the river below Kangaroo Point, refers to the construction of Eskgrove.
By the mid-1850s there were only three river estates along the south bank of the Brisbane River from Shafston Reach to Norman Creek: Shafston House (commenced in 1851 as Ravenscott for Rev. Robert Creyke and completed in 1852 for Henry Stuart Russell); the Rev. Thomas Mowbray's Riversdale (probably constructed c. 1851 - now the site of Mowbray Park) and Eskgrove. All three houses were of stone construction.
A link to the Queensland Heritage Register listing for Eskgrove can be found here.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/heritage-register/detail/?id=600187
No comments:
Post a Comment