Queensland Heritage Council visits Ipswich heritage sites

The Queensland Heritage Council (QHC) will today (15 August) visit heritage-listed places in Ipswich.

These include the 86-year-old former Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator, the 125-year-old former Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College, and the 112-year old former Commonwealth Hotel.

“Ipswich heritage is alive and well,” QHC Chair Leslie Shirreffs said.

“There are 87 state heritage-listed places in Ipswich from hotels to rare wharf remnants, courthouses, schools, churches, hostels, bridges, railways, memorials and mills.

“It is a city with a great history that dates from the early 1800s, so it is to be expected that Ipswich is replete with heritage sites.”

Ms Shirreffs said the focus of the QHC’s visit was to look at some of the conservation and adaptive reuse projects for heritage buildings being undertaken in Ipswich.

“Conserving, managing and adaptively re-using heritage places is important in creating community identity, sustaining local economies and ensuring these places are protected for present and future generations,” Ms Shirreffs said.

“The best way to conserve a heritage building, structure or site is to use it – adaptation links the past to the present and safeguards our heritage places into the future.

“There are many examples of the adaptive reuse of heritage sites in Queensland, with the Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator and the Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College in Ipswich being prime examples.”

During its Ipswich visit, the QHC will met with local National Trust members, the owners and managers of the heritage sites visited, and Ipswich City Council representatives.

Ipswich City Council Growth, Infrastructure and Waste Committee Chair, Mayor Teresa Harding, said: “We are thrilled to have the QHC in our heritage city to discuss matters such as council’s new planning scheme, state and local heritage places, identifying and assessing places of local significance, and historic, first nations and landscape places.”

Ipswich Division 3 Councillor Marnie Doyle, who is a member of the QHC, said: “As a member of the Queensland Heritage Council, I look forward to listening and learning about heritage issues beyond Ipswich and offering my perspective on the Ipswich experience. I will also be a fierce advocate for the protection of heritage buildings and places within our city.”

The former Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator in Milford Street was originally Ipswich’s only municipal incinerator – and is also the only building in Queensland designed by American architect and urban designer, Walter Burley Griffin, whose work had a profound effect on the nation’s capital.

When the incinerator was decommissioned in the 1960s, the Ipswich Little Theatre campaigned for it to be retained, and the building has been the theatre’s home since 1969.

The former Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College in Limestone Street, meanwhile, is now the Pumpyard Bar and Brewery.

A two-storey masonry structure, the former technical college was designed by prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill and opened by the Governor of Queensland, Lord Lamington, in June 1901, at a time when technical education was becoming firmly established in Queensland.

“Following a major adaptive reuse project in 2013, the former college has become a well patronised commercial space, with the bar and brewery complemented by modern professional office suites, boutique retail outlets and cafés,” Ms Shirreffs said.

Ms Shirreffs said the Commonwealth Hotel, in Nicholas Street, was less an example of adaptive reuse (as it had always been a hotel) and more a case of a local authority painstakingly preserving a local heritage place.

“The hotel closed around a decade ago after subsidence made the building unsafe.

“It was purchased by Ipswich City Council in 2014 with Council then deconstructing the building virtually piece by piece and meticulously putting it back together so it can again be patronised safely by the public.

“The building is an asset to the city and the Queensland Heritage Council believes it will assist greatly in the revitalisation of the Ipswich CBD.”

The Queensland Heritage Council is a 12-member independent statutory authority established under the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 to help conserve Queensland’s cultural heritage.

The QHC regularly makes visits across the state, engaging with owners and managers of heritage places to gain a better understanding of local heritage management challenges and to acknowledge the conservation work being done locally.

“Ipswich City Council is to be commended for the outstanding efforts it makes to preserve the city’s heritage,” Ms Shirreffs said.

See more information on Ipswich City Council’s heritage initiatives.