glorious

Slab House This is a low-set, single-storeyed, timber-framed structure with hardwood slab walls and floors and a hipped roof of unlined corrugated iron. Adzed timber rafters and tie beams with few battens support this roof, and the galvanised iron guttering is of early half-round profile. The principal uprights are morticed and tenoned to a bottom plate and carry a top plate, and the whole rests on timber stumps. Split hardwood slabs, both vertical and horizontal, provide the infill between the frames. There are no internal doorways. Slab partitions to ceiling height divide the structure into three rooms, each of which opens onto a verandah which runs the length of the building on the southwest side. The outer edge of the verandah floor is carried by a ground log. The former kitchen features a cooking alcove and chimney of corrugated iron attached to the end wall. This alcove is clad externally with vertical slabs and has a stone floor. Beyond the kitchen a small iron-roofed lean-to supported by timber posts is attached to the rear of the fireplace. The building remains substantially intact and has been furnished as a private museum, illustrating a typical bedroom and kitchen of the pioneer era. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_Hut_Farm

Only a short drive from Brisbane are a patchwork of towns and villages in the hill country they like to call the hinterland. In early European days before air-conditioning, they offered a refreshing retreat from coastal heat for people used to more temperate climates. Their purpose was a bit like the hill stations of British India. Among the least-known to outsiders are two tiny settlements, so close to Brisbane they could easily have been swallowed by urban sprawl if not for a national park. The closest, on the edge of the rainforest is Mount Nebo. A bit higher and right in the rainforest centre, is the magnificently named Mount Glorious. Source: www.traveller.com.au/beyond-brisbane-its-glorious-gaiq

In the early 1900s, people began riding up to Mt Glorious from the eastern valleys below and began growing bananas and other crops. The first building at Mt Glorious, erected around 1909, was Tom Lindsay’s “Gentle Breezes”. In October 2009 the Mt Glorious community celebrated the centenary of European settlement at Mt Glorious. Preparation for the centenary included some historical research and gathering of stories concerning Lindsay and others who followed. The following is an extract from resident Ruth Lowe’s, Tom Lindsay: first settler’s house on Mt Glorious, Centenary celebrations 2009. "Helen Horton’s book Brisbane’s Back Door mentions the early development of Mt Glorious and describes how Thomas Lindsay “rode up the Cedar Creek spur by Mt O’Reilly to a place he liked on the top of the range. He called it Gentle Breezes.” After taking over the selection in 1908 he moved up to the land and lived in a tent. He appears to have worked, with the help of Charles Patrick in clearing the land and putting in a dairy herd. Helen Horton continues: “Later Charles Patrick accepted Lindsay’s further offer to take his family and live in the five-roomed slab hut, with separate kitchen, which had by this time replaced the tent. (See above photo). With a verandah at the front, it was reasonably comfortable, but it had a separate kitchen made of stringybark sheets that was quite some distance from the hut.” “The first house on Mt Glorious was built ‘around 1911’ [erased and replaced with ‘1909’] by Mr Tom Lindsay. The house took him from 12 to 18 months to build …” The letter continues: …”the family accepted the offer and moved to Mt Glorious around 1912.” At that time their family numbered eight children. In his description of the eventful wagon trip up the mountain with the furniture Bill Patrick mentions ‘the baby’, who was probably Phyllis Patrick, born 16.5.1910, mother of Pat Berlin the author of the letter." Source: www.mtnebo.org.au/history-of-european-settlement/