Sandgate Post Office | |
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Sandgate Post Office, 2008
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Location | 1 Bowser Parade, Sandgate, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
Coordinates | 27°19′16″S 153°04′08″E / 27.321°S 153.069°ECoordinates: 27°19′16″S 153°04′08″E / 27.321°S 153.069°E |
Design period | 1870s - 1890s (late 19th century) |
Built | 1886 - 1887 |
Architect | Office of the Queensland Colonial Architect |
Official name: Sandgate Post Office, Sandgate Post, Telegraph Office | |
Type | state heritage (built) |
Designated | 7 February 2005 |
Reference no. | 600290 |
Significant period | 1886-1887, c. 1907 (fabric) 1886-c. 2004 (historical) |
Significant components | post & telegraph office, residential accommodation - post master's house/quarters |
Sandgate Post Office is a heritage-listed former post office at 1 Bowser Parade, Sandgate, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect and built from 1886 to 1887. It is also known as Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 7 February 2005.
The two-storeyed Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office was erected in 1886-7 to a design prepared in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect.
A post office had operated at Sandgate since 1864, on Eagle Terrace near Palm Avenue. In the early 1880s a new site in Bowser Parade, closer to the railway line that had reached Sandgate in 1882, was purchased for £800.
In June 1885 the Post and Telegraph Department requested that the Department of Public Works prepare plans for a new post and telegraph office building for Sandgate, to cost no more than £2,000. It is likely that the design was produced under the supervision of John James Clark, Colonial Architect from 1883 to 1885. Tenders were called in March and April 1886, but the design proved too expensive.
Fresh plans were prepared under the supervision of Clark's successor, George St Paul Connolly, Queensland's first locally born and trained Colonial Architect (1886–1891). These plans were further amended to reduce costs and tenders were called in June–July 1886. A contract was let to local Sandgate builder William Street, with a price of £2,025. It is thought that the bricks for the construction were supplied from Leopold Fiedler's brickworks in Roghan Road, Zillmere, beside Cabbage Tree Creek.
The new post and telegraph building, uncommonly substantial for what later became a suburban office, reflected government confidence in the booming economy and the importance of Sandgate both as a popular seaside resort and, increasingly, as a residential commuter district. Sandgate had its own local government (Borough of Sandgate) at that period and was not officially a "suburb" of Brisbane until the establishment of Greater Brisbane on 1 October 1925, but the railway enabled residents of Sandgate to commute daily to work in Brisbane.