Kent Lodge

It is significant as a good example of the Old English style of architecture that became popular in Brisbane during the Interwar period, particularly in the wealthy suburbs of Hamilton, Ascot and Clayfield.  The Old English style, sometimes referred to as Mock Tudor or Stockbroker Tudor, exploited traditional rural or village English architecture to achieve a picturesque quaintness through the use of gables, decorative timber bargeboards, tall chimneys, textured render and sometimes, imitation half timbering. A catslide roof was another common characteristic as was the use of terracotta roof tiles, both of which feature in Kent Lodge.

Cyril William Gibson purchased the two lots in Oriel Road measuring just over 50 perches in September 1937. A Brisbane City Council sewerage detail plan circa 1920s indicates that the site was originally the tennis court of the house at the rear of the site, now 90 Oriel Road. Gibson immediately engaged Douglas Francis Woodcraft Roberts, a Brisbane architect, to design his new home.

Roberts, the son of an architect and master builder, worked in Sydney and travelled overseas before becoming one of the group of young Interwar architects designing buildings in Brisbane in contemporary styles, such as Old English and the more modern Functionalist. Other examples of his domestic work in Brisbane include the Rhoades’ home in Samford Road, Enoggera (1939), the MacMillan home in Bonney Avenue, Clayfield (1938) and Chateau Nous, Rupert Tce, Ascot, built in the Functionalist style in 1938. Roberts died in 1941.

The Interwar years were a time of growth in the Clayfield area. The advent of the railway in 1885 and the tram along Sandgate Road in 1901 meant that most of the suburb had easy access to the city by public transport. Many of the older large estates had been subdivided for residential development and members of the wealthy and professional classes engaged architects to design new homes in the most fashionable styles. Many homes in the Clayfield/Ascot area, including Kent Lodge and other houses designed by Roberts, appeared in feature articles in the society journal, Steering Wheel and Society and Home. The article featuring Kent Lodge described the Gibson’s new home as 

“an excellent example of this adaptation of the Old English period to modern requirements….which retains all the charm of the Old English exterior, whilst introducing many of the desirable features that mark the modern architectural ideals”.

After the death of Cyril Gibson in 1969, Kent Lodge was transferred to his widow, Winifred Gibson. The house was purchased in 1995 by the current owners who  carried out extensive renovations and additions in 1998 and 1999. The view of the house from the street, however, remains largely as it was when the house was built.

1. Apperly, Richard, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds. A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present. North Ryde: Angus & Robertson, 1989

2. Brisbane City Council Detail plans and aerial photographs

3. Kennedy, Michael Owen. Domestic Architecture in Queensland Between the Wars. Unpub Thesis. Master of Built Environment. 1989

4. Queensland Post Office Directories 1939

5. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940. (St. Lucia: U of Q Press, 1984)