Why is Nundah so Different from Every other Brisbane Suburb?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:07]Welcome to Nanda. The old Nanda cemetery is just over that way. The road here is Headley Avenue. This was originally known as Cemetery Road. And the land behind me, gently rising up, was once known as Zion Hill.

[00:00:26]This was the site of the very first free European settlement in Queensland.

[00:00:33]So, let's set the scene. The year was 1838 and this was during the period of the Morton Bay Penal Settlement. A place for repeat offenders, convicts from Sydney to be sent to. And around this settlement, which was located at William Street in the Brisbane CBD, there was a 50-mi exclusion zone. No one was allowed to enter this zone unless they were part of the penal system or had special permission. Any form of free civilian settlement was illegal.

[00:01:03]>> But there was one exception.

[00:01:06]>> Say hello to the Germans. There were 20 of them, men and women from the Gossner Missionary Society. They were a small evangelical Protestant organization and were encouraged by the Reverend John Dunore Lang to come to New South Wales and form a mission to convert the local Aboriginal people. Lang himself, a Scotsman, had tried to entice Scottish Protestants to come out here, but they all turned him down. Lang was a persistent fellow and was often able to talk governments and various authorities into giving him what he wanted. In this case, he wanted permission for the missionaries to settle within the exclusion zone and to be given some land. They sailed for Sydney aboard the Manurva with 235 immigrants on board, but 15 women and 18 men died from typhus before they reached Sydney.

[00:02:00]Some of the group made their way to Morton Bay and they arrived on the 30th of March in 1838.

[00:02:06]They were greeted by Common Dant Cotton because this was still the penal settlement and they were housed for a little while in the convict hospital.

[00:02:16]Well, that hospital used to stand round about here at the intersection of George and Adelaide Street. In fact, that little bit of wall you can see there, that's a reconstructed part of the old perimeter wall that surrounded the convict hospital.

[00:02:32]So it was the colonial administrators of the Morton Bay Penal Settlement who selected this area for the missionaries to settle. However, other sources such as the Urban Foundations, which is an excellent document, and I highly recommend you read it, state that it was the missionaries themselves who selected this place because of its high concentration of Aboriginal people living here and also because it was the intersection of two rather busy old pathways, one running north south and the other coming here from the interior.

[00:03:06]The Aboriginal name for this area is cited as being tumble from which we get the word tumble and apparently it means hoop pines.

[00:03:16]I say that here because just out there in the distance behind me that was the site of the old Tumble Shopping Center now long gone. The German missionaries were granted 500 acres alongside a creek they named Kedran Brook after Kedran Valley near Jerusalem. Kiddran is the biblical threshold that marked the wilderness in which false gods were worshiped and is the place where God will assemble all the nations for a final judgment. And they called their settlement Zion Hill, named after Mount Zion, also in Jerusalem. And they eventually constructed 11 cottages, each with their own garden.

[00:04:12]You see, the whole point of this German mission was the conversion of the local Aboriginal people in the area to Christianity. And for most of the run of the existence of this place, relations between the two peoples were pretty good. Some of the local Aboriginal folk were employed on the farms here. Uh there was a lot of sharing of resources and and food and whatnot. It was pretty good. Some Aboriginal people even on occasion attended church service here.

[00:04:43]The problem with this was that see by this time some of the local Aboriginal people had a few words of English. They the Morton Bay Penal Settlement had been there long enough. So a few English words had filtered through to the local Aboriginal peoples, but of course attending church service here at Zion Hill, everything was in German. So I can imagine the looks on the uh the Aborigines faces. It's like what the what the hell is this? We're just starting to get our heads around English and now we got a whole new language to to deal with. So they didn't stay too long at the the church services. Many places in Brisbane are named after the missionaries. The suburb of Zilmir was named after Yan Leopold Zilman as were the Zilman's water holes that flows into Downfall Creek. Zilmir Road, Gera Road, and Roadie Road are all prominent roads named after members of the missionary party.

[00:05:46]The Nanda Historic Cemetery. This was originally known as the German Station Cemetery. We don't actually know exactly when it was founded. The first death recorded and burial here at German Station was that of Lewig Doge. And apparently he kicked the bucket in 1845.

[00:06:05]So I guess he's buried in here somewhere. I believe the earliest tombstone is still standing dates from 1855. Where it is, I've probably got Buckland's chance of finding it. And that's a little joke cuz Buckland Avenue was just over there. There is water around over there and it looks like it used to flow behind me down that way. It's almost a little island here.

[00:06:32]I've just switched over to my phone.

[00:06:33]I've got Wayne here. You're from the um you look after the cemetery.

[00:06:39]>> Friends and of this uh historic Nanda cemetery. Okay. And you're going to show me where the oldest headstone here is.

[00:06:45]It's 1855, >> correct? Yes. So, William Balcock.

[00:06:48]>> William Balco. Okay.

[00:06:49]>> I was here a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't find it and I've just happened to come across Wayne. He's going to show me. Lead on McDuff.

[00:06:56]>> Yep. Come on up.

[00:06:56]>> Um, my uh main camera is charging up at the moment, folks. So, that's why I am talking to my phone, my my B-roll. So, I don't know how good the audio is going to be. I'll try to hold it a bit further away. I don't want to be too close.

[00:07:13]>> Oh, wow.

[00:07:25]Okay. So, just looking at this um grave here, the fellow here, his last name is Bullcock, and that's an English name.

[00:07:34]He has the oldest still in existence tombstone here at Nanda Cemetery. But this is a lot of Germans here, of course. But in English though, say hi, Louis.

[00:07:52]Um, all right. Now, I don't mean to make fun, but this guy's name is Say hi, Lewis.

[00:08:05]Hello, Louis. I wonder how many times people said that to him when he was alive.

[00:08:12]Bye, Louis.

[00:08:31]Visit the creepiest cemeteries on the north side of Brisbane. I'm Jack Sim from Ghost Tours Australia. Discover Brisbane's haunted history. Hear real local ghost stories and tales, myths and urban legends on these eerie experiences. The Nanda Cemetery Haunted History Tour. Will the little girl ghosts come out to play? And at the Lwig Cemetery Haunted History Tour, is there really a tunnel under Gimpy Road connecting the local pub to the graveyard? Jackson presents Ghost Tours Australia, Brisbane Ghost Tours. Watch Ghost Tours Australia's YouTube and Tik Tok channel.

[00:09:06]>> And you can't keep a good German missionary down. And they didn't just stay here. Some of them traveled far and wide, even as far as Bribe Island to spread their message and also to try to convert the Aboriginal peoples they met.

[00:09:19]And all with the same lack of success that they had here at Zion Hill. In 1843, German explorer and naturalist Lewig Lykart visited the mission and he spoke highly of the work done by the missionaries. Despite the fact that not one aborigy had been converted to Christianity and that was the problem this was the whole point of the Germans migrating out here, all that time, effort and money expended into converting them and yet they didn't make a single convert.

[00:09:51]Consequently, government and mission society funding for the settlement was gradually withdrawn. Also, Sir George Gibs, the governor of New South Wales, deemed the settlement to be too close to Brisbane. And so, by the mid1 1840s, the Germans decided to found another settlement, this time much further north near Kabul. But they encountered particularly fierce resistance from the Aboriginal people there, and the idea was soon abandoned. Some of the missionaries moved far away either to other colonies or overseas.

[00:10:24]Others though chose to remain here and to continue to farm the area. So even though it failed in that regard of being a missionary settlement to convert the local Aboriginal people, it was still a success because it became a thriving farming community. And for quite a number of years, some of the best produce available in Brisbane came from Zion Hill.

[00:10:48]And the very first pineapples in Queensland were cultivated here. If you take a look on this old map of Brisbane just after the penal settlement along what is today Queen Street, you can see a little pineapple farm. Those pineapples for that farm would have come from here at Zion Hill. And just to set the record straight, yes, pineapples do belong on pizza. A sketch of the settlement was made in 1846 by Carl Ger.

[00:11:16]You can see Aboriginal children being taught by a German teacher. And here are the 11 cottages all neatly lined up with cattle in the fields. A question though, were these Germans really the very first free settlers in what would become Queensland? They arrived in 1838.

[00:11:35]However, there was a fellow here the year before in 1837, and that was Andrew Petri. He'd been working down in Sydney.

[00:11:43]He was a civilian and he was brought up here to be a sort of a a works foreman.

[00:11:49]Some of the old convict buildings were already starting to uh become dilapidated.

[00:11:54]He had his own private house just here at this site.

[00:12:00]So really who was the very first free settler here? Was it the Germans in 1838 or Scotsman Andrew Petri in 1837? It was in 1848 that the last residents of the settlement gave up trying to convert the Aboriginal people to Christianity and in that year the land was surveyed by the government into blocks. This is when the area became known as German station and now new people began arriving.

[00:12:35]It was in 1855 that George Bridges, as far as I'm aware, there are no photos of George Bridges. So, I created an image of him with AI. AI decided to put a stick through his hand. Bought some land here. In fact, he was the very first selector in this area. The land above the tunnel and pretty much all that land behind me, that was his land. He was born in 1820 in Bedfordshire and he came out to Brisbane in 1852 with his family.

[00:13:04]He settled here and he had a lot of plans for this place. George Bridges had a house somewhere very close to here. It was either round about where I'm standing here. The Nunder Library is just there or across the road roughly where the Hyundai car dealership is today. Someone said it was over there, but I've seen a map which seems to indicate it was here. Whatever his plans were a result of the shifting nature of Sandgate Road. Originally, Sandgate Road ran along Bonnie Avenue right onto Junction Road and then left onto Jackson Road. It crossed Kedan Brook here and ran along what is now Beige Street and then continued north.

[00:13:46]Not only did the Kedran Brook flood easily at this location, but also Beige Street is very steep. So in the early 1860s, a new bridge was built here with Sandgate Road being shifted eastwards through what is now Clayfield. George Bridges saw a business opportunity. So he converted his house into a hotel and he called it the Kedran Hotel.

[00:14:13]And then he got a liquor license which was very handy because there was so much more traffic coming through here as a result of that bridge.

[00:14:22]But 2 months later, he tried to sell it.

[00:14:25]There had been some foul up with a survey. Well, he couldn't sell it, so he renamed it as the Kedan Brookke Hotel.

[00:14:33]Later on, it became the Nanda Arms Hotel. In 1864, George Bridges created a new road leading to his hotel, and that road is today part of Sandgate Road, the bit that runs through the Nunder Village area, the main shopping precinct. This diversion became the genesis of the settlement of Nanda. George Bridges died in 1898 and is buried in the Nunder Cemetery.

[00:15:07]Also in 1864, the Prince of Wales Hotel was opened. This is what it looked like before it looked like that.

[00:15:26]1865 and that's when the German Station National School opened on this side here. Today, of course, it's an understate school. The original school building, I believe, was round about this corner here. This is the intersection of Beige and Buckland.

[00:15:46]In 1879, the Nunder division was created, an early form of local authority. Its northern boundary was the Pine River with the Brisbane River to the south as its southern boundary.

[00:15:57]Morton Bay was the eastern boundary and the western one being the South Pine River, then known as Chinaman's Creek.

[00:16:05]This was a huge area and that was a bit of a problem. The residents in the Tumbul and Nanda areas felt that what they needed in terms of political representation was different from those in the Pine River area. And so with some agitation they succeeded in having the Tumble Division being split from the Nunder division. And that occurred in 1883. And the council hall for the Tumble Division was in the Breakfast Creek Hamilton area.

[00:16:35]Going to do a selfie out here at Nunder Train Station. Go for it, mate. What's your name?

[00:16:54]>> Josh.

[00:16:55]>> Josh. Nice to meet you. Josh. All right.

[00:16:59]>> The waves and the >> What's your name?

[00:17:01]>> Tom.

[00:17:01]>> Tom. Nice to meet you, Tom. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:03]All right. We'll do the do the selfie.

[00:17:05]Oh, cheers.

[00:17:08]>> Cool.

[00:17:08]>> It's a beautiful day to be out.

[00:17:10]>> Hey, >> this is Nanda train station. It opened in 1882, but it was simply known as German, as in German station, but you couldn't really call it German station.

[00:17:22]The name German only lasted for about 6 weeks and then it was changed to Nanda.

[00:17:26]According to Tom Petri, the name Nanda was Nander or Nanda. uh and it meant chain of water holes in the local Aboriginal language. Another interpretation is that it's a corruption of the word niander which means a swamp or a lagoon. Either way, the name seems to have a watery connotation.

[00:17:45]Interestingly, there is a former train station on the Bean Lee line at Ssbury which was called Niander and the interpretation of that name in that part of Brisbane is also a swamp or a lagoon.

[00:18:03]It was in 1883 that the Nanda Railway Station estate was opened for land purchases.

[00:18:14]I'm just about to shoot a piece to camera about the Royal Hotel which is across the road on Station Street. And I looked up here and there is an old Station Street sign. I don't know how old it is, but what a lovely little find.

[00:18:29]It's one of those examples of when you're urban exploring or wherever you're going in life, look up. Across the road, there is the Royal Hotel.

[00:18:39]Opened in 1888. It was originally known as the Royal English Hotel. Now, by the 1880s, there were already a couple of hotels here in the Nanda area. The Tumbul divisional board had no objection to another one being established here, citing the need for better hotel accommodation.

[00:19:00]Well, up yours, Prince of Wales Hotel.

[00:19:14]To the locals, the Royal Hotel is the bottom hotel and the Prince of Wales being up the hill is the top hotel. But which one are you? Top or bottom? It was most likely in 1888 when the Royal was being built, the George Bridges Nunderms Hotel just down the road that way went out of business. I believe it was demolished in the early 20th century.

[00:19:44]This is the former Tumbleshshire Hall.

[00:19:48]Well, this is the old council building.

[00:19:50]The Tumbleshshire Council was established in 1883. It included such places as Hamilton, Clayfield, Nudgy, Northgate, Eagle Farm and also here at NUN. What happened was in 1890 Hamilton split away to become its own Shire. The problem was the Shia council building for Tombil was in Hamilton. That meant that Tumbel Shire had to build their own brand new council chambers. And this is it. That's the building behind me. And it opened in 1891.

[00:20:22]It's got a beautiful facade. Look at that brick work.

[00:20:29]Absolutely lovely. But if you come around the side, it soon gives way to wood.

[00:20:41]And then when you get to the back, it's pretty much a tin shed. Well, this sucks. This is Buckland Road and that's Bishop Street there. There's some very impersonal, impertinent wooden fence here behind that. That was the site of the Tuffenel orphanage. This is what it looks like on the Google Street View. You can actually see there's the old brick fences out the front.

[00:21:07]I don't know how long this fence has been up, but I wanted to stand there and look at the site and tell you about it.

[00:21:12]Anyway, I will. The orphanage was created as a memorial to Bishop Tuffnel.

[00:21:17]And right in front of me over there, there's Toughnel Street. And there's Bishop Street, Bishop Toughnel.

[00:21:23]>> Edward Tuffnel was born in Somerset in England in 1814. one of 18 children. He later married one of his cousins from 1859 to 1874. He was the first Anglican bishop of Brisbane. The orphanage accommodated girls aged 3 to 14 and boys aged 3 to 8. The orphanage closed in 1975.

[00:21:49]In 1914, a chapel was built on the site.

[00:21:52]Eventually, the orphanage was demolished, but the chapel remained, and the last time I read about it, it was still here on the site. Gee, there's some nice houses around here.

[00:22:05]211. That's nice.

[00:22:08]Oh, it is. Wow.

[00:22:12]Ah, Well, the gate is open.

[00:22:22]Example of Rob trespassing number 308.

[00:22:26]Here we are. The site of the former Toughnel Orphanage.

[00:22:39]There's the chapel, the last building on the orphanage grounds. And it's still here. It's all fenced off.

[00:22:57]Other than the chapel on the site, the area is completely clear.

[00:23:02]Certainly a prime piece of real estate up here. The views are incredible.

[00:23:10]When I was reading about this place and the fact that it's an orphanage, it an orphanage doesn't always mean that both parents uh have passed away. It can sometimes mean that maybe there's only one parent left and they can't look after the child. So, the child goes to an orphanage maybe just for a little while. It doesn't mean to say they're going to be there uh for endless years.

[00:23:33]Well, I know I am probably not supposed to be here, so I will make a discreet exit.

[00:23:43]In 1903, the old divisions were replaced with shiers, and so the Tombble division became the Shire of Tomb.

[00:24:01]Well, how about that? The Nanda Collure.

[00:24:04]This place has got everything. It continuously in operation from 1895 to 1905. I believe that it did come back to life on and off up until about 1930.

[00:24:16]H the photo that I've got and this is the only one I could find. It looks like the photographer was standing on the other side of Kedan Brook just over there looking back this way.

[00:24:30]So, the fellow in the photo, um, how high does this thing go?

[00:24:37]Oh, it goes. It's actually quite high.

[00:24:39]This looks like an old set of stairs.

[00:24:42]Wow.

[00:24:48]Goes up that way.

[00:24:52]I've just come back further along the main path here. This is where your your joggers and dog walkers are. But I I can see more of that old pathway and it's up there. This isn't it. This is just something people have beaten through the bush on here. But I come up to here.

[00:25:12]This is it. This is the old pathway. Now I wonder how old this is because it's very overgrown. You can see down there.

[00:25:20]Just disappears into the brambles. But you can walk up here a bit.

[00:25:26]They're planting a few more trees here or trying to top spot. Very nice. Right near the rock wall on the old um Collier.

[00:25:47]I can imagine just how much this place floods and it wouldn't take too much.

[00:25:51]There's a sign here warning of it. Paths subject to flooding. Indicators show remaining insurance.

[00:26:28]here in Nunder Village. See across the road there, that building that services Australia, that used to be the site of a cinema. In 1918 was built the Imperial Picture Theater. Next door to it, it had a cafe and that was the Imperial Cafe.

[00:26:44]The theater was modernized a few years later and just became the Imperial Theater. The theater closed in 1965 and um woo what wit. So the theater is long gone but the cafe still remains and it is still a cafe today.

[00:27:09]>> Very cool.

[00:27:10]>> Been enjoying your videos, Rob.

[00:27:12]>> Oh, thank you very much for that. I'm shooting one right now on the history of Nanda. Archbishop James Jwig is responsible for the expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland in the early 20th century and he specifically chose hilltop locations for new churches for example Corpus Christi in Nanda.

[00:27:31]Some believe this was a scaledown design of the holy name cathedral planned for Fortitude Valley. The very impressive Corpus Christi Catholic Church. It opened in 1926, which means this year is its 100th anniversary. It was designed by the architectural firm Hennessy and Hennessy, and they were the ones responsible for the designs of the Holy Name Cathedral in Fortitude Valley. That was going to be the largest Catholic cathedral in the southern hemisphere. It was partly built and then abandoned. It was never finished.

[00:29:01]It was in 1926. 7 that the Duke and Duchess of York visited Nanda. This was part of a wider tour of Australia and to open the new Parliament House.

[00:29:16]The lovely old building behind me, that's the former telephone exchange. It was built in 1928.

[00:29:23]They loved the red brick in the 1920s.

[00:29:26]often, certainly in in the Brisbane CBD, if you see a building with dark red, very rich, earthy red brick work, you can pretty much guarantee it's going to date from 1920 something after World War I. And I don't know how long it went for. Um, but anyway, one of those little diagnostic things. If you see something like that, you're pretty sure it's going to be the 20s.

[00:29:50]There's exceptions, of course. I know.

[00:29:52]Well, this is Melton Road and down here is Schulz Canal. This was constructed in 1928 to drain low-lying water and swampy areas. It was named after William Schulz, who was an alderman for the Tumbleshire Council.

[00:30:15]Very nice little walkway along Shaw's Canal.

[00:30:19]Heat.

[00:30:43]Heat.

[00:30:54]This here is Katigan House. It was opened in 1933 as the Nunder Private Hospital. It was built for the illiterative nurses Barkley Bell and Bourne and the builder was a Mr. Bartlett. And then in 1965 it became known as Katagan House.

[00:31:20]How would you get an ambulance through there? So, this place was constructed during the Great Depression and no doubt offered some welcome employment to some of the locals. But there was another construction nearby which was far larger and it's just that way not too far from here.

[00:31:43]As part of large work programs during the Great Depression in 1934 the current Nund State School was begun.

[00:31:51]And I can see the front stairs there.

[00:31:54]It's very clear. It says, "This stone was the step of the original Nund State School erected in 1865."

[00:32:01]What a lovely little thing to put there.

[00:32:03]It's great that you give the students a reminder of the heritage of the school.

[00:32:13]That building there behind me is the former Nanda Fire Station. It opened in 1936 and closed in 1999.

[00:32:21]There was an earlier fire station somewhere near here that opened in 1917 and it had a tower where the firemen could see fires in the distance. All I know is that it was on Buckland Road.

[00:32:32]Well, Buckland Road is right there. But yeah, I haven't been able to find out its location yet. If you know, please comment. I'm assuming it's pretty close to here. I mean, they built that one in 36. So, anyway, we'll find out. Um, Nanda Village. What's next?

[00:32:52]We'll get some shots of the Dunny.

[00:32:54]>> This toilet block was built in 1942 as an air raid shelter during World War II.

[00:33:00]All up, 235 air raid shelters were constructed across Brisbane. And each followed a basic design by city architect Frank G. Costello.

[00:33:10]Every time I tried to look up information about Frank Costello, I instead got the New York mafia boss Frank Costello. I'm assuming they're different people.

[00:33:20]The Nanda Express newspaper came into being in 1952, covering a large area of the north side of Brisbane. It only lasted 8 years, though, and it went defunct in 1960.

[00:33:34]The rather austere and simple yet much loved Nanda Memorial Hall opened in 1953, and it managed to survive the much later construction of the George Bridges Tunnel. It was in 1967 that the Tumble Shopping Center opened. Famous for its large T- sign on Sandgate Road. Always prone to flooding, it was severely flooded in February 2022 and the decision was taken to permanently close and demolish the center and that began in 2024.

[00:34:10]Oh, and a bit of trivia. Some scenes from the 1998 minisseries The Day of the Roses about Sydney's Granville train disaster were filmed at Tombal Shopping Center.

[00:34:52]Walking a little bit further around the perimeter. Here's an old driveway leading into the site into the car parks and the ubiquitous mattress.

[00:35:06]the great mattress migration. Where are they going? Now, of course, I know a lot of people lament the passing of Tumble Shopping Center. But really, what do you expect if you're going to build a major building on a marshy flood plane? And some will say, "Oh, isn't it terrible?

[00:35:21]It's such a disaster. It's a tragedy. It got flooded. How could this happen? You know, floods are bad." Well, you know what? Floods are normal. Floods happen as part of the natural earth cycles. If you're going to build something on a marshy flood plane, you got to expect that it's going to get flooded. And this is the problem that we build things thinking nature will stay away because we want something there. Don't build such things on flood planes. Work with nature, not against it.

[00:35:56]Nunder Library opened in 1968 by Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Clen Jones.

[00:36:05]What a lovely color. That would make a beautiful color for a ribbon.

[00:36:45]It was in 2001 that the George Bridges tunnel opened. 11 properties had to be resumed for its creation. So George Bridges built a road and he had a tunnel named after him. It's kind of a shame he never actually had a bridge named after him.

[00:37:04]Well, that's a story of Nunder. And what a story it is. We began down at Zion Hill in Kedanbrook with German missionaries planting Protestantism here in what would one day become Queensland.

[00:37:17]But these days I think we think of Nanda more as a place of Catholicism. There's an example right there. Regardless of the denomination, religion has always been a very big part of the history of Nanda. So as always, thank you very much for watching the documentary. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to hit that like and the subscribe button and the bell notification. You don't have to ask Rob, when's your next video landing?

[00:37:43]Please tell me. Hit the bell notification. You'll be notified. Okay, I'll see you on the next walk.

[00:38:35]Heat. Heat.