A-Z of Old Brisbane: Alderley and Annerley.

Alderley

Family in front of Upton Cottage, 39 South Pine Road, Alderley, Brisbane, around 1889.
A family in front of Upton Cottage, Alderley.

The suburb of Alderley officially came into being in the late 1870s, with the establishment of a post office. The suburb took its name from Alderley Edge in Cheshire England, according to the nice, helpful people of Wikipedia. Alderley is bordered by Newmarket and Enoggera in modern Brisbane, and in recent decades, Alderley’s proximity to the CBD raised its property prices.

Two tiny sailor suited young lads standing at the entrance of a charming whitewashed cottage in Alderley about 1910. Cottage enclosed with a paling fence stood on South Pine Road at Alderley.
Two boys outside a cottage in Alderley.

The Alderley Arms Hotel was built in 1886, and is still with us today. (The opening of a pub or two seems to have been the index used to denote a proper settlement in the 19th century.) The Arms used to be a venue for an excellent counter lunch, if you didn’t mind the 1970s décor and the non-stop jabbering of the racing channel. It has since undergone a bit of a sprucing-up, décor and menu-wise. The décor needed it.

Thomas Bancroft's residence and tannery off South Pine Road, near Alderley Railway Station Dr Thomas Bancroft lived here between 1905 and 1907, before moving to Stannary Hills in North Queensland.
Thomas Bancroft’s residence.
Looking towards Farrington Street from Alderley Railway Station about 1910. Cows lazing in the shade of a tree watched over by an elderly woman equipped with both hat and umbrella.
A view from Alderley Railway Station.

Early photographs of Alderley show neat family cottages along the South Pine Road, with a paddocked area near the railway station home to grazing cattle.

Ted Taylor's blacksmiths shop at Alderley about 1912 Three Blacksmiths posing outside the smithy with wagon wheels in the background.
Ted Taylor’s blacksmith shop.

Annerley

Like Albion, Annerley was founded around an inn on a thoroughfare. Where the Ipswich Road met the Boggo Road (now Annerley Road), the Junction Hotel was opened in 1866. The Junction became shorthand for the area previously known as the Boggo. (While the Boggo Road Gaol is located in nearby Dutton Park, just to be confusing.)

The Junction Hotel was a one-story hotel with a sloping verandah situated on the corner of Ipswich Road and Annerley Road, Annerley. The sketch is in black and white, featuring men on horses in the grounds of the hotel. According to a report in the Brisbane Courier dated the 16 December 1884, the hotel was destroyed by fire on the 14 December 1884.
Sketch of the original Junction Hotel in 1875.

The original Junction Hotel  burned down in December 1884, and was promptly rebuilt. The thirsts of locals and travellers to distant Ipswich demanded it. The area, previously farmland, gradually populated into a suburb, getting a post office in 1882.

A watercolour painting by Charles Gordon Sebastian Hirst. The painting depicts the rebuilt Junction Hotel (the property of Mr J. Neil) on the corner of Ipswich and Boggo Roads, Brisbane. The watercolour shows a more elegant scene than the 1875 sketch, as a horsedrawn carriage pulls up, a well-dressed couple converse near a grazing horse, a little girl walks past on the footpath, a man walks his dog, and two workmen approach the door to the hotel from another direction.
The rebuilt Junction Hotel in 1886.

Another hotel, rather grander in design, was built in the 1890s – Chardon’s Hotel on the Ipswich Road (named after Peter Chardon, an industrious proprietor of watering places). The area became known as Chardon’s Corner, and there is a hotel on the site, but it’s a rather different proposition from the gabled glory of the old Chardon.

Black and white photograph of the Chardon’s Hotel, a 2-story brick building with gabling and verandahs on the second floor. Designed by prominent Brisbane architect John Beauchamp Nicholson, the hotel was erected in ca. 1892 upon the southeast corner of Ipswich Road and Cracknell Road, Annerley, known today as Chardon's Corner. The first licensee was T. F. Chardon.
Chardon’s Hotel.

The Chardon’s Corner Hotel today offers a lot of live music from local acts, the proprietors apparently unafraid of noise complaints from those  who want to live near buzzy venues, but don’t want their sleep disturbed.

The Junction today (the exterior of which bears a faint visual resemblance to the rebuilt 1885 hotel) offers family lunches, family days out, courtyard dining and an upmarket version of chips-with-everything.

The Junction Hotel today, and the Chardon’s Corner hotel today. Sic transit gloria mundi.

The suburb itself is experiencing the dizzy climb of property values, being only a few minutes from the city centre.

Large colonial home belonging to the Soden family situated in Ipswich Road, Annerley. A group of people dressed in late Victorian clothing can be seen in front of the house.
The Soden family residence in the Queenslander style in Annerley. The family is in front of the verandah, watching the birdie from afar (the photographer had to get the whole of the house in, after all…)

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