Queens Gardens, Brisbane | |
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Queens Gardens, looking along the diagonal path to the state of Queensland Victoria and the former Land Administration Building (now Heritage Hotel) beyond, 2013
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Location | 144 George Street, Brisbane CBD, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
Coordinates | 27°28′20″S 153°01′27″E / 27.4723°S 153.0242°ECoordinates: 27°28′20″S 153°01′27″E / 27.4723°S 153.0242°E |
Design period | 1900 - 1914 (early 20th century) |
Built | c. 1905 - 1990s |
Official name: Queens Gardens, Executive Gardens, St Johns Church Reserve | |
Type | state heritage (built, landscape, archaeological) |
Designated | 21 October 1992 |
Reference no. | 600112 |
Significant period | 1820s-1830s, 1848-1899, 1901-1962, (historical) |
Significant components | lake / pond / waterway, post/s - lamp, tree groups - avenue of, lawn/s, statue, seating, memorial - rock/stone/boulder, garden - bed/s, pathway/walkway, trees/plantings, guns/weaponry/armament |
Queens Gardens is a heritage-listed park located on a city block between George Street, Elizabeth Street and William Street in the Brisbane CBD, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from c. 1905 to 1990s. It is also known as Executive Gardens and St Johns Church Reserve. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
Queens Gardens are adjacent to the former Land Administration Building (now the Heritage Hotel of the Treasury Casino). On the opposite side of William Street is the Old State Library Building and on the opposite side of Elizabeth Street is the former Treasury Building (now the Treasury Casino).
As an early penal colony the site was originally home to a cottage, lumber yard, engineer's store and workshops.
Queens Gardens was established in several stages between 1905 and 1962, on a site which has been associated both with the earliest phase of the penal settlement at Moreton Bay, and with the establishment of the Church of England in Queensland.
During the convict era the engineer's weatherboard cottage stood on part of the site, at the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets. It appears to have been both the first house and the first sawn timber building to be erected in Brisbane Town.
Occupying most of the remainder of the site was a lumber yard, erected c.1825, which contained the engineer's stores and workshops. By 1838 the lumber yard had been moved, and the cottage had been converted into offices. The section of the present park along George Street was part of the chaplain's garden from 1840 at least.