OLD QUEENSLANDERS

On my way home from visiting Mum and Dad I drove through the town of Maryborough and as I looked at the houses it set me thinking. ( Dangerous, I know !!!)

There is a particular style of house in Queensland called "Old Queenslander" and they aren't found in any other part of Australia.

These houses are built on " stilts" - wooden posts anywhere from 6 to 9 feet off the ground.
The idea was to get up high and catch the breezes - any breeze you could in this hot, muggy climate.
I guess you were also up out of the reach of flood waters too as this is the land of the cyclone and rain depressions which can bring enormous amounts of rain in a very short amount of time.

Old Queenslanders are built of wood and always have a big verandah on the front and usually on the back too.
Most started off with the verandah all the way round, then the owners often built it in to provide a bathroom and extra berdooms for children as they came along. They were called "sleepouts"

Like this one.

Often the kitchen is also on this back verandah or even a whole separate room is built with a separate roof at the back of the house so that the kitchen does not heat the house up with its wood stove and in case of fire- always a danger in wooden houses with wood burning stoves.
Of course these days the wood stoves have been removed and the kitchens modernised.

You can see the separate kitchen on the back of this one.

There are lots of different styles of decoration on these verandahs which , I think, make the houses very pretty.

Now Queensland has only been settled by white people for a little more than 150 years so some of these houses may be quite old by Australian standards - maybe 60 to 100 years old.

Of course not too many have survived intact.

There is the problem of roofing material.

TIN  -  which of course rusts like this ...

 

.....but modern tin rooves don't rust like this anymore.

Then there is the problem of Termites or "White Ants" as we call them.

Devilish little white "ants" which burrow underground till they find wood .

Then they tunnel up through the wood eating it all the way till all that is left is the paint on the surface!

They do enormous damage and are a constant problem in building wooden houses.

In the "Old Queenslanders" they blocked them by placing a tin "plate" over the top of the support posts then built the floor on top of that hoping the horrible little varmits could not get through as you can see here.

This lovely old style of house remains popular still.

Many have been purchased and saved from ruin by being lovingly restored and are very comfortable to live in while retaining heaps of character.

This is possibly the most beautiful one I have ever seen.

It is in Maryborough and it is ENORMOUS

I just love them don't you?

Cheers