Introduction..
I suppose this is a history book written by a gardener/florist, so I make no excuses for the deviations, the flowery side~tracks; they were bound to happen. So in the end it is a gardening book. It must start with history because this came first, at least the red soil came first, the history just happened to happen upon this Eden of red soil so they are inevitably bound up together in book form.
Take any book dealing with the early history of Queensland, flip a page or two, and you are likely to come upon a paragraph beginning something like this: Sugar was first grown in Queensland by Captain Louis Hope @ Ormiston some 20 miles from Brisbane in the year 1865.
To find your way to Ormiston you must travel a road out of Brisbane in a southerly direction. However as we are not particularly concerned with Captain Louis Hope enterprising as he undoubtedly was, we are concerned with the fact that in pursuing his ideas with his diverse moods, he found himself in a predicament & had to reach out for help. In other words, his business grew to the extent of requiring a capable manager. He found this in one Gilbert Burnett, who had himself begun to successfully boil sugar @ nearby Redland Bay.
With Hope @ the helm & Burnett in command of the sugar, Ormiston became a thriving little centre & its environs gradually changed face.
It is recorded, to the laudation of Captain Hope, that he was a man of responsibility. He strove to serve the needs of his household, his employees, & chance comer with a providential hand. This is evident in the remaining remnants of that early community, the overseer's cottage, the gate~keeper's cottage, the little church. They were not humpies, but attractive homely dwellings that must have helped allay the homesickness of the settlers. It would have been no mean task setting solid foundations of this sort with a limited supply of materials @ hand.
Thereby arose the famous Ormiston House, now owned & controlled by the Sisters of Carmelites, & open for inspection by the public. A most gracious old building, it reflects, even today, some of the Victorian grandeur the Hope family brought with them to the colony.
Saint Andrews Anglican church which still serves the folk of Ormiston, is preserved today in its original state [the key hangs by the door for any who might wish to enter].
Remnants of the first garden still remain, a row of red hibiscus, an avenue of gigantic pine, a massive Banyan covering almost a square acre of rich red loam, living monuments to their planter.
I strongly advise you to visit Ormiston, if you have not already done so. Although the remaining evidence of a once large establishment is now time ravaged & depleted, there yet remains enough of interest to take you back 100 years to a crucial step in the history of an industry which has grown to be of such immense importance to the state of Queensland.
In the undergrowth near Hilliards Creek one might stumble upon old rusty sugar boilers. Further up the creek stretch the sun bleached plyons of the old landing stage. One can easily picture the Eucalyptus plying back & forth, while, from its vantage points, the progressive little shore party waits hopefully for its coming, or with, perhaps, a tinge of nostalgia, watches it vanish into the blue mists of Moreton Bay.
The waters of Moreton Bay must surely boast the bluest mists in all the world; I have not seen the Italian Lakes. At certain seasons of the year sea, sky & islands seem enveloped in a haze as ethereal as a dream world. I have read of the bluebell paddocks of the Old Country & seen Australian Linseed in bloom, acres & acres of azure blue swayed by the wind & breathtakingly lovely, but this is different. It is a live thing, soft, seducing, enfolding you. Artists try to capture it; poets write of it, yet it is elusive, intangible, going & coming at the beckoning of nature, escaping from brush & pen as easily as it lifts from the water. I have watched the little boats leave the jetty & fade into the blue as if they never existed.
To form a picture of the locality accurately, one must see the 'points' which are know today as Thornside, Wellington, Ormiston & Victoria respectively, jutting into the blueness at amazingly even intervals & each providing its particular historical data. Ormiston House occupies a prominent position on the leg of land bearing its name. The point above it on the map, looking like a dotted "i", then a leg & known today as Wellington Point, was something of a picnic spot to the early comers [King Island, isplated from the mainland only @ high tide, forms the dot of the "i".]
Cleveland, at that time, aspired to the capitalcy of the State & would have assuredly enjoyed that honourable position today had not its advocates tipped Governer Gipps off the Shamrock into a knee deep, mud sticky example of the virtuous island. Governor Gipps, indignant & uncomfortable, & in no mood to appreciate the latter fact, forthwith frowned upon Cleveland with all his vice~regal dignity & left it to stick in its own mud. A happy state of affairs for Cleveland.
What tragedy if brick & cement had sealed the red richness forever beneath an unyielding crust, & the sylvan stillness shattered by the din of peak~hour traffic, & the blue mists of the bay overtaken by grey & poisonous smog! The very idea makes me want to rush out wildly & drink in the pure air & feast my eyes on the blueness & scratch away in red soil to makes sure it's still there. Whoever, in their right mind, could regret that mud? Present day Cleveland ~ old modern, dignified, self~satisfied~ reminds me of a nice broody hen happily sitting on her robbed nest.
Well, we have come a long way from Captain Louis Hope & his providential hand...
Across from Ormiston, the gentle slopes flourished in their virgin state. 1, 200 acres stretched from Old Cleveland Road, to the junction of the "point". This land Hope generously allowed Burnett to purchase from him.
On a central eminence, where today stands Bayview Convalescent Hospital, Burnett built the first house in the area & called it Trafalgar Vale.
It was long & sprawling, twin gabled & ugly, suitable to the climate & probably pleasant enough to live in & in an era of of bark huts & lean`tos, it would have been a palace. Much of its construction was of red cedar, pit sawn, spiked with handmade, flat`sided nails.
Local records tell us that within its unpretentious portals was born the first white child of the district. In its living room was held the 2nd meeting of the Cleveland Divisional Board ~ besides all the unrecorded events which must have taken place within its walls. If I think about this too much I shall be writing, If only walls could speak & ceilings tell their tales..., but the inanimate hold their secrets & much of 100 years is left to the imagination.
There were 10 children in the Burnett family. It is not hard to picture motherly Mrs Burnett attending to the needs & appetites of her brood. I suppose they loved, joyed & sorrowed in their long sprawling house on its 1 200 acres.
According to the books & local hearsay, the fortunes of the family fluctuated. At the peak of prosperity the old house @ Trafalgar Vale was put on a bullock dray & dragged to a distant corner of the property where it sat & faced the morning sun & a magnificent panoramic view of the bay & the fringe of islands beyond.
In its place was built a more pretentious abode called Whepstead, 3 stories of it & not a join in the lining of the stairwell. A lot of the original design has been lost as the hospital has expanded, verandahs enclosed, & bits added here & there.
Eventually the Burnett lands were sub~divided & the names of the 10 children perpetuated by Herbert, Percival, Matilda, Walter, Edith, Edgerton, Alice, Albert, Harold, & Norman streets.
The history of the old house then grows obscure. So many owners lived, loved, & ate their meals within those dark walls that it is beyond me to sort it all out, let alone attempt to record any of it, except for odd incidents that I have gleaned from the neighbours, such as the fact that at one time it made a tardy sale @ 100 pounds.
Take any book dealing with the early history of Queensland, flip a page or two, and you are likely to come upon a paragraph beginning something like this: Sugar was first grown in Queensland by Captain Louis Hope @ Ormiston some 20 miles from Brisbane in the year 1865.
To find your way to Ormiston you must travel a road out of Brisbane in a southerly direction. However as we are not particularly concerned with Captain Louis Hope enterprising as he undoubtedly was, we are concerned with the fact that in pursuing his ideas with his diverse moods, he found himself in a predicament & had to reach out for help. In other words, his business grew to the extent of requiring a capable manager. He found this in one Gilbert Burnett, who had himself begun to successfully boil sugar @ nearby Redland Bay.
With Hope @ the helm & Burnett in command of the sugar, Ormiston became a thriving little centre & its environs gradually changed face.
It is recorded, to the laudation of Captain Hope, that he was a man of responsibility. He strove to serve the needs of his household, his employees, & chance comer with a providential hand. This is evident in the remaining remnants of that early community, the overseer's cottage, the gate~keeper's cottage, the little church. They were not humpies, but attractive homely dwellings that must have helped allay the homesickness of the settlers. It would have been no mean task setting solid foundations of this sort with a limited supply of materials @ hand.
Thereby arose the famous Ormiston House, now owned & controlled by the Sisters of Carmelites, & open for inspection by the public. A most gracious old building, it reflects, even today, some of the Victorian grandeur the Hope family brought with them to the colony.
Saint Andrews Anglican church which still serves the folk of Ormiston, is preserved today in its original state [the key hangs by the door for any who might wish to enter].
Remnants of the first garden still remain, a row of red hibiscus, an avenue of gigantic pine, a massive Banyan covering almost a square acre of rich red loam, living monuments to their planter.
I strongly advise you to visit Ormiston, if you have not already done so. Although the remaining evidence of a once large establishment is now time ravaged & depleted, there yet remains enough of interest to take you back 100 years to a crucial step in the history of an industry which has grown to be of such immense importance to the state of Queensland.
In the undergrowth near Hilliards Creek one might stumble upon old rusty sugar boilers. Further up the creek stretch the sun bleached plyons of the old landing stage. One can easily picture the Eucalyptus plying back & forth, while, from its vantage points, the progressive little shore party waits hopefully for its coming, or with, perhaps, a tinge of nostalgia, watches it vanish into the blue mists of Moreton Bay.
The waters of Moreton Bay must surely boast the bluest mists in all the world; I have not seen the Italian Lakes. At certain seasons of the year sea, sky & islands seem enveloped in a haze as ethereal as a dream world. I have read of the bluebell paddocks of the Old Country & seen Australian Linseed in bloom, acres & acres of azure blue swayed by the wind & breathtakingly lovely, but this is different. It is a live thing, soft, seducing, enfolding you. Artists try to capture it; poets write of it, yet it is elusive, intangible, going & coming at the beckoning of nature, escaping from brush & pen as easily as it lifts from the water. I have watched the little boats leave the jetty & fade into the blue as if they never existed.
To form a picture of the locality accurately, one must see the 'points' which are know today as Thornside, Wellington, Ormiston & Victoria respectively, jutting into the blueness at amazingly even intervals & each providing its particular historical data. Ormiston House occupies a prominent position on the leg of land bearing its name. The point above it on the map, looking like a dotted "i", then a leg & known today as Wellington Point, was something of a picnic spot to the early comers [King Island, isplated from the mainland only @ high tide, forms the dot of the "i".]
Cleveland, at that time, aspired to the capitalcy of the State & would have assuredly enjoyed that honourable position today had not its advocates tipped Governer Gipps off the Shamrock into a knee deep, mud sticky example of the virtuous island. Governor Gipps, indignant & uncomfortable, & in no mood to appreciate the latter fact, forthwith frowned upon Cleveland with all his vice~regal dignity & left it to stick in its own mud. A happy state of affairs for Cleveland.
What tragedy if brick & cement had sealed the red richness forever beneath an unyielding crust, & the sylvan stillness shattered by the din of peak~hour traffic, & the blue mists of the bay overtaken by grey & poisonous smog! The very idea makes me want to rush out wildly & drink in the pure air & feast my eyes on the blueness & scratch away in red soil to makes sure it's still there. Whoever, in their right mind, could regret that mud? Present day Cleveland ~ old modern, dignified, self~satisfied~ reminds me of a nice broody hen happily sitting on her robbed nest.
Well, we have come a long way from Captain Louis Hope & his providential hand...
Across from Ormiston, the gentle slopes flourished in their virgin state. 1, 200 acres stretched from Old Cleveland Road, to the junction of the "point". This land Hope generously allowed Burnett to purchase from him.
On a central eminence, where today stands Bayview Convalescent Hospital, Burnett built the first house in the area & called it Trafalgar Vale.
It was long & sprawling, twin gabled & ugly, suitable to the climate & probably pleasant enough to live in & in an era of of bark huts & lean`tos, it would have been a palace. Much of its construction was of red cedar, pit sawn, spiked with handmade, flat`sided nails.
Local records tell us that within its unpretentious portals was born the first white child of the district. In its living room was held the 2nd meeting of the Cleveland Divisional Board ~ besides all the unrecorded events which must have taken place within its walls. If I think about this too much I shall be writing, If only walls could speak & ceilings tell their tales..., but the inanimate hold their secrets & much of 100 years is left to the imagination.
There were 10 children in the Burnett family. It is not hard to picture motherly Mrs Burnett attending to the needs & appetites of her brood. I suppose they loved, joyed & sorrowed in their long sprawling house on its 1 200 acres.
According to the books & local hearsay, the fortunes of the family fluctuated. At the peak of prosperity the old house @ Trafalgar Vale was put on a bullock dray & dragged to a distant corner of the property where it sat & faced the morning sun & a magnificent panoramic view of the bay & the fringe of islands beyond.
In its place was built a more pretentious abode called Whepstead, 3 stories of it & not a join in the lining of the stairwell. A lot of the original design has been lost as the hospital has expanded, verandahs enclosed, & bits added here & there.
Eventually the Burnett lands were sub~divided & the names of the 10 children perpetuated by Herbert, Percival, Matilda, Walter, Edith, Edgerton, Alice, Albert, Harold, & Norman streets.
The history of the old house then grows obscure. So many owners lived, loved, & ate their meals within those dark walls that it is beyond me to sort it all out, let alone attempt to record any of it, except for odd incidents that I have gleaned from the neighbours, such as the fact that at one time it made a tardy sale @ 100 pounds.
Comments
Post a Comment