Convicts & Colonials: Domestic Architecture

Early Ipswich houses
Early houses in Ipswich were typically single-storey, often with no setback from the street alignment. The plan form often featured detached or semi-detached kitchens at the rear. Roof forms were either pitched or hipped with simple skillion roofed verandahs. Variants include reverse curve iron to verandahs. Chimneys were prevalent.

Early types of housing were rudimentary with hand hewn timber 'slabs'. Often of brickwork with stone footings. External walls may be rendered and decorated with ruled joints to simulate large blocks of stone. Other examples have wide horizontal pine chamferboards on stud timber frame. Floors were generally of hoop pine tongue and groove on a timber frame. Roof materials on earliest examples were slate, shingle or galvanised iron, generally replaced by the turn of the century with corrugated galvanised iron custom orb profile. Windows were usually double hung sash or colonial sash type with six panes of glass to each sash. Windows and French doors sometimes had outward opening timber shutters. Joinery such as doors, windows, skirtings, and architraves were generally of Australian Cedar or sometimes pine.

Internal surfaces of walls were either of plastered brickwork, or more commonly tongue and groove beaded joint boarding. Ceilings were either lathe and plaster, or timber boarding matching the walls. Many of these buildings pre-date the era of cast iron lace. Low set verandahs often had no balustrading while others had simple vertical square balusters or pickets. Often the original detail no longer exists or has been altered to a later form. Columns were either of rectangular or square section with simple capital moulds.

Location of the first house in Ipswich
The exact location of the first dwelling house in Ipswich has given rise to many discussions in modern times. Russel mentions in his history that the cottage "stood in a bight, formed by the junction of a deep gully, on the western aspect, with the Bremer, which flowed by it on the north, about a hundred yards away." Reliable authorities state that the site of the cottage was within a short distance of "Claremont," in which the Hon. George Thorn, M.L.A., lived for many years (Jubilee History of Ipswich).

By 1846 The Moreton Bay Courier reported that many substantial houses and comfortable cottages were being constructed at Limestone (Ipswich). The article went on to say:

in fact, is has now assumed many of the characteristics of an established town.