Norwich

In 1888 ownership was transferred to Joshua Bailey, a Wickham Street tailor in Fortitude Valley, who rented the house to the Reverend John Horsley. It was while Horsley was living there that the house was initially referred to as ‘Norridge Villa’. Directories suggest that the house be used primarily as a rental dwelling by its owners until the early 1900s. 

In 1905 it was purchased by the politician, journalist and explorer, Archibald Meston, who renamed it ‘Cambanora’ for the duration of his stay. Born in 1851 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Meston represented Rosewood in the Queensland Legislature from 1878-1882 and Cook in 1907. By the 1890s after a period working as a journalist and editor of the Townsville Herald and Toowoomba Chronicle as well as sugar cane plantation owner, Meston was commissioned to prepare recommendations for the improvement of Aborigines’ welfare in Queensland. His proposals were subsequently embodied in the Aboriginals Protection Act 1897. While Meston was resident at ‘Cambanora’ he became Chief Protector of Aboriginals in the Southern Region. Meston also involved himself in scientific explorations of the time. Among others, he was leader of the Queensland Government’s expedition to the Bellenden Ker Range where he found a new plant of the mangosteen family that was named Garcinia mestonii in his honour. He was author of Geographic History of Queensland (1895), Scheme for the Improvement of Aborigines (1895) and The Sacred Ibis (1902). 

The property passed through various owners and tenants throughout the latter part of the 1900s until Alfred Bennett purchased it in 1912 and ‘Norwich’ became associated with the Bennett family until the early 1950s. Noel Hall then purchased the property for his wife Doreen, who lived there until 1972. The property once again changed hands a number of times through the 1970s and 1980s. 

The front verandah has a concave corrugated iron roof and balustrading with diagonal members. The verandah posts are spaced symmetrically but unevenly across the front of the building, dividing it into five bays. One is defined by a verandah post to each side of the entry door, and the two to either side of a similarly small proportion, while the outside ones are quite large. Solid timber brackets of varying angle span to the centre of each bay below the eaves line. 

The entry door is a panelled timber door with a central doorknob. Windows are located behind the wider bays of the verandah. The front fence and entry stair is very solid in comparison to the light-weight timber structure of the building itself. Large rendered posts topped by moulding, widely spaced, extend up to a common level. 

A solid portion of fence between these posts retains earth above footpath level, and above the ground level between the posts are cast iron bars topped by arrowheads as infill. A gate is made in a similar fashion, and stands in front of a concrete stair, which extends up to the verandah level entry.

1. Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Detail Plans

2. Department of Natural Resources, Queensland Certificates of Title and other records, Environmental Protection Agency

3. Evans, Ray, Saunders, Kay & Cronin, Kathryn, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1993

4. JOL Estate Map Collection and photographic collection

5. Lawson, Ronald 1973, Brisbane in the 1890s: A Study of an Australian Urban Society, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia

6. McKellar's Map of Brisbane and Suburbs. Brisbane: Surveyor-General’s Office, 1895

7. Pike, Douglas, ed, Australian Dictionary of Biography 1851-1890, Vol 5, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne,  1974

8. Waterson, D.B., A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972

9. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994