Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Allgas Building and the Plough Inn

The Brisbane City Sketchers spent a wonder autumn morning in Stanley Street South Bank.  It was a morning filled with laughs good conversation, and stories..
Both sketches are   sketched in my handmade sketchbook 8"x7.5" Lamy pen and watercolour.

 Allgas Building
This building was erected in 1885 for the drapery and outfitting firm of Allan & Stark, and named Caledonian House Along with a number of prominent South Brisbane firms, Allan & Stark moved across the river to higher ground after the disastrous floods of 1893. Caledonian House was firstly leased to the Queensland National Bank in 1897 and the bank purchased the building in 1909
The South Brisbane Gas & Light Co leased a portion of the building in 1897, and remained there after the building was purchased by the bank. The building went through a series of different changes and was eventually bought by South Brisbane Gas & Light in 1967. This company became Allgas Energy in 1971.
Until just recently DM Jazz bar leased the building, and I have had a few nights in there sketching listening to jazz over a glass of red.  It is now Munich Biergarten.

See the Uni-cyclist above?
Artist John Underwood, made 175 fibreglass and wire 
"Human factor" sculptures for Expo '88 
There are 3 that I know of left in the city, the others were repurposed or sold to international visitors.
 

Plough Inn is significant historically as a rare surviving remnant of the commercial and shipping heart of South Brisbane in the late 19th century. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. The Plough Inn was built in 1864 by publican Daniel Costigan, an Irish Publican. It replaced a previous, less substantial structure on the site, which had functioned as the Plough Inn since 1864. The new building was erected during South Brisbane's heyday and was part of the 1880s boom-time reconstruction of Stanley Street premises.
There is a story....... The bottom half of the hotel was exactly that, the top floor was a red light area. The publican in the 1920's caught his wife supplementing their income, and throttled her on the top floor verandah, and threw her off onto the road below. her ghost remains, as does the ghost of a wee girl who was drowned in the cellars in the 1893 flood.  It has been said you can still hear the little girl calling for her mummy.
 


This photo of both the buildings was taken in 1987, a year before the clearing of the area for EXPO '88

Three of us made it to coffee

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