Mowbray park is an historical park in East Brisbane, named after the
Reverend Thomas Mowbray, who arrived in 1847. He was one of the earliest
settlers and became known as the father of Presbyterianism. In 1851,
he opened
Brisbane's first Presbyterian Church in Grey Street, South Brisbane.
Mowbray Park was built from 1904 to 1974. It is also known as East Brisbane War Memorial and Riversdale.
In the
early 1920s, the council constructed a floating swimming enclosure in the river
next to the park. It became very popular to swimmers of all ages. The
swimming pool led to the formation of a surf life-saving club that still
exists, now associated with Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast as the
Burleigh Heads Mowbray Park SLSC.
Floating baths were first introduced to Brisbane in 1857 and were to
remain a feature of the river for some 70 years. Such enclosed baths
were supposedly "shark proof". One of the more prominent and popular of
these floating baths was the "Victoria Baths", situated against the
river bank on the downstream side of the Victoria Bridge's southern
approach (1880s).
Mowbray Park and Dutton Park were the the other floating baths. At the public floating baths,
bathing was often segregated, even to the extent of different swimming
times for male and female bathers.
My two sketches for today were looking each way up and down river.
This one is looking down river towards New Farm park. I used 140lb Arches wc paper, graphite and whatercolouur.
No comments:
Post a Comment