Masonry Shops and Flats

Along Sandgate Road retail and commercial buildings were built that helped create a central village. In 1888 the Royal English Hotel, now known as the Royal Hotel, was built down the hill from the Prince of Wales Hotel. A telegraph office was established in 1882, an unofficial post-office in 1883 and the Nundah Baptist Church in 1889. 

By the turn of the century the Nundah district had a population of 1675 people. During the late nineteenth century many new houses were built in the area. The interwar period heralded major population and residential growth in the Nundah district. In 1921 the population in the area had reached 3870 and by 1931 was 15, 831. This can be attributed to the sale and subdivision of many of the remaining farms in the area. 

In 1920 Elizabeth and Timothy Patrick Confoy purchased a 26.6 perch block on Sandgate Road, Nundah. By 1930 a number of retail premises had been established on Sandgate Road between Boyd Road and Old Sandgate Road (now known as Bage Street). A draper, boot-maker, two confectioner and fruiterers, and a fish shop were conducting business on this small section of Sandgate Road. In October 1931 Mrs E. Confoy was recorded in the Register of New Buildings as applying for the construction of a shop on the 26.6 perch block. The cost of the work was estimated at £200. The Nundah Fruit Supply store was constructed from masonry with a tapered masonry parapet. By 1934 the Nundah Fruit Exchange was recorded in the Post Office Directories beside Molsey’s fish shop. In 1935 the fruit exchange was called the Nundah Fruit Supply store. Also that year Molsey’s fish shop next door changed hands and became Etherington’s butcher shop. 

In May 1940 Elizabeth Confoy was once again recorded in the Register of New Buildings applying for the construction of a new set of shops and dwellings on Sandgate Road, Nundah. The builder was to be B. J. Bartlett and the estimated cost was £1179. In the same month the Architect and Builder’s Journal published a Tender Notice for the architectural firm Plant and Voller for two shops and dwellings. The accepted tender was from B. J. Bartlett. 

Plant and Voller’s design of the 1940 building utilised the unusual triangular site at the entrance to the Sandgate Road commercial district in Nundah. Built directly beside the Nundah Fruit Supply store, the larger two storey brick building designed with its masonry symmetrical high front parapet contributed to the streetscape at the time. Directly across the road from 1252 Sandgate Road was the Imperial Picture Theatre (demolished) and several smaller auxiliary businesses such as cafes that utilised the passing trade generated by the picture theatre.  

The decision to incorporate two flats on the first storey of the 1940 building demonstrates the increase in the construction of multi-unit dwellings in Brisbane in this period. As the Great Depression progressed from the late 1920s and into the 1930s a marked deficit of housing in Brisbane emerged.  This was the period in which the multi-unit dwelling began to emerge as an alternative to the traditional Brisbane house and yard. Prior to this in larger Australian cities such as Sydney and Melbourne this style of ‘modern’ living, in blocks of flats, had become a stylish alternative to living in the traditional house. Marketed mainly at single people and childless couples the earliest self-contained flats in Brisbane were generally conveniently situated close to trams, trains and shopping facilities in inner-city suburbs such as Spring Hill, New Farm and Fortitude Valley. 

The set of flats were unusual for Nundah as the majority of its housing stock in this period were single detached houses. The shops and flats are important in representing the commercial history of Nundah and the way in which its centre has developed.

1. Johnston, Anna “‘God being, not in the bush’: The Nundah Mission (Qld) and Colonialism, Queensland Review, v. 4, no. 1, April, 1997, p. 71-80

2. University of Queensland, Queensland Places, http://queenslandplaces.com.au/home

3. Booroodabin: A Sesquicentenary History of Breakfast Creek, Bowen Hills, Newstead and Teneriffe, 1823-2009, The Queensland Women’s Historical Association Inc, 2009

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

5. Donald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, South Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994

6. Brisbane City Council Detail Plans

7. Certificates of Title, Department of Environment and Resource Management

8. Nundah Historic Cemetery Preservation Association. 150 Years Nundah Families; 1838-1988.  (Brisbane, 1989)

9. Queensland Post Office Directories

10. Queensland Electoral Rolls

11. From Pioneering Days: Nundah, Northgate, Virginia, Nundah and Districts Historical Society Inc, 2002

12. Brisbane City Council, Register of New Buildings

13. A&B Journal of Queensland, May 1940