schoolofarts

Ravenswood School of Arts is a heritage-listed school of arts at Macrossan Street, Ravenswood, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1884. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.[1] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenswood_School_of_Arts

The School of Arts Building was erected in 1888 and is situated in the main street of the Bundaberg CBD. This State heritage-listed two stoery building has a curved internal staircase, offering unique photo opportunities for groups and formals. Close to local government offices, post office, cafés and shops, the first floor veranda offers picturesque views of the CBD. The building’s striking pink façade and decorative arches make this venue a distinctive feature of Bundaberg’s main street. There are two rooms, a meeting room with a kitchenette and an exhibition gallery. Source: formstmp.bundaberg.qld.gov.au/MD-7-702.pdf

Bundaberg School of Arts is a heritage-listed former school of arts and now a community center at 184 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg Central, Bundaberg, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Anton Hettrich and built from 1888 to 1889. From 1889 the School of Arts offered technical classes in a variety of practical subjects including drawing, shorthand, bookkeeping, typing, dressmaking, millinery, chemistry, dairy work, manual training, and carpentry. These were so successful that in 1898 a timber hall designed by Frederick Faircloth was built behind the School of Arts to accommodate them. This had a stage and piano and was hired out when not in use, thus expanding the activities of the institution, and was enlarged soon after it was built. However, in 1908 the Technical Education Act shifted responsibility for the provision of such classes to the government, a factor in the demise of Schools of Arts generally. The interior of the building is intact and well detailed. The ground floor walls are plastered brick and there is a central hall from which the former library and offices are reached. The main staircase at the rear of the hall is semicircular in plan and has two niches and a window in the stairwell and a turned timber balustrade leading to a first-floor landing. This is joined to the former reading room by a short hall which has smaller rooms to the left and right. The partition walls are of narrow tongue and groove vertical boarding and there are timber ceilings and cornices. The doors have fretted transoms with a lyre and acanthus design, a classical reference appropriate to a center dedicated to education and the arts. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundaberg_School_of_Arts

Compare with earlier view: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=63398

I tried to find the buildings on Google street view - are they still there? Anyone know the street address?

Corner William & Howick (not Howie). >>> Google Maps Street View Already demolished in this 1948 photo: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=217470 "The Bathurst School of Arts In 1855 the Bathurst School of Arts and Mechanic's Institute was established, offering the beginnings of scientific and technical education in Bathurst (Greaves, 1961). A grant of land to the School of Arts resulted in premises being built by 1861 on the corner of Howick and William Streets on land adjoining the Church of England's All Saints Cathedral. It was a two storey building designed by local architect, M.H. Sadlier. A long-desired public hall was completed in 1874, helping boost the membership to 324 people (Bialowas, 2000, 35, 39-40). During the 1870s the School of Arts received an annual grant from the Government on the understanding that 'the institution should tend to the intellectual advancement of the people'. Early accounts of the lectures and discussions suggest that entertainments were many and varied, including: lectures, tea-drinkings, readings, soirees, bazaars, an occasional circus, 'biological-phenomena', mesmerism, and phrenology. The courses of lectures were on occasion ambitious and expensive (Greaves, 1961)." - source: Heritage Council of NSW

A description of the interior of the buildings ... "Fronting Howick and William streets are the School of Arts premises, which have been erected at a cost of £11,000. Between two shops on the ground floor, in William-street, an entrance leads upstairs to a reading-room, well supplied with the leading colonial, intercolonial, and English newspapers. The room is about to be enlarged. Behind the reading-room is a library containing over 6000 volumes of books. The shelves are supplemented by a regular monthly supply from England, the books being specially rebound in half-roan - an admirable arrangement, which materially contributes to their preservation. Behind the library is the great hall, which is the finest in the colony. Its length over all is 120 feet by 45 feet; inside the platform the dimensions are 75 by 45. It will easily accommodate 1000 people, and half as many more have on occasions been packed into it. The platform is fitted up with a proscenium; behind are retiring rooms, and beneath is a large supper room. The acoustic properties of the hall are unfortunately defective, and an attempt is to be made to improve them." - source: The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 24 July 1880, p. 3.

pellethepoet Golly you have been busy. Thanks for all that interesting research. I now want to go to Bathurst ! It looks like the original buildings were hiding behind additions (verandahs and a new hall roof) in the 1948 photo, rather than demolished. Fascinating.