The Second Innisfail Court House is a heritage-listed former court house and police station in Innisfail, Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia, which was subsequently relocated and used as a private residence at 40 Buckley Street, Yorkeys Knob, Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Department of Public Works (Queensland) and built from 1920 to 1930s. It is also known as the former Innisfail Police Station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 6 December 2004.
History The second Innisfail Court House at 40 Buckley Street, Yorkeys Knob is a high-set timber building originally constructed in 1920–1921 as a court house and government offices on the corner of Rankine and Edith Streets, Innisfail. In 1938 the building was moved a short distance to a site in Edith Street, Innisfail. With the third and present Innisfail Court House (built of rendered brick in interwar-classical style) opening in 1940, the timber building was converted to the Innisfail Police Station in 1942. The building was purchased by private owners in 1988, moved to its present location at Yorkeys Knob and adapted for use as a private residence.
The Johnstone River area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane occurring in 1880 by TH Fitzgerald. In 1881 the first sugar mill was erected in the area and a town was laid out at the junctions of the North and South Johnstone Rivers. The town was named Geraldton in 1883, although in 1910 it was changed to Innisfail to avoid confusion with the Western Australian town of the same name.
The town's first official building, described by Dorothy Jones as a "long low iron structure" was erected , probably on the police reserve, and accommodated a police station, court house, unofficial post office, lands office, customs office, an office for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and a gaol. Tenders for a second court house were called in late 1887, and a timber building was built on the corner of the police reserve bounded by Edith and Rankine Streets. By the late 1900s-early 1910s the Innisfail district was attracting attention from both land speculators and settlers, with a particular focus on sugar production. The Queensland Government expressed its intention of opening up Mourilyan Harbour and of resuming, and extending the local tramline inland from the coast, which gave further impetus to development of the district as a sugar production area.
It was normal practice in colonial days for country and regional court houses to be built of timber, often with corrugated iron elements. These buildings were usually single story and unassuming, consisting of little more than two or three rooms arranged longitudinally and surrounded by verandahs on at least three sides. Surviving examples from this period in the tropics include Port Douglas Court House(1879) and Croydon Court House (1887). The 1888 timber court house in Innisfail suffered considerable damage in the devastating cyclone of 1918, which destroyed an estimated 75% of Innisfail's buildings. It was replaced in 1920–1921 with a timber building on high stumps with an iron roof and wide verandahs at front and sides. The courtroom at the rear was detached from the front portion of the building by a passage. The building also housed offices for various government departments as well as shops.
In the design of Colonial and State Government buildings in Queensland, there is considerable continuity, particularly in the use of timber as the predominant material, and in details of composition. Some of the design details in common use in government buildings, particularly from the mid-1880s onwards, are window hoods, eaves details, gable decorations, verandah balustrades and roof vents. While many of these elements including timber composition were common to many buildings in Queensland from early on, government buildings such as court houses, post offices, schools, and police stations for example, can be distinguished from the common mode by the high standard of architectural composition, the careful detailing, and the attention to climate - as evidenced in the use of sun shading devices, ventilation systems, and the overhang of eaves beyond the verandah edges.
Many buildings constructed in Innisfail after the 1918 cyclone, demonstrate particular adaptations to cyclonic conditions. That many destroyed timber structures were re-built in reinforced concrete, masonry or rendered to offer some protection from the elements, poses historic inquiry of the 1920–1921 timber court house. It is notable that at least one of the alternative schemes for the new court house featured plans of a grand two-story masonry structure in inter-war free classical style. Indeed, court house architecture of the time set out to impress and awe the unfortunate citizens who were unlucky enough to be involved in the process of the law. As a result, most surviving examples from the 20th century are more permanent and refined masonry structures such as the Cairns Court House (1921) and the Dalby Court House (1930s). Even in small country towns it was common for second-generation court houses to be built this way, replacing an earlier and more basic timber building. The reasons for constructing the court house, a symbolically important building, out of timber at this time, may reflect availability of materials as well as economic factors, although further research could enlighten this debate.
Adaptations used in the construction of the Innisfail court house however, include the use of steel bolts to anchor the roof to the walls, and the walls to the floor beams, which were in turn bolted to the stumps. Diagonal crossbeams of hardwood timber were used to brace the walls of the building. These elements are thought to be early adaptations of construction methods to cyclonic conditions.
By 1932 some of the verandah space of the building was sacrificed for rooms, including the Police Magistrate and a jury room. The front section of the building was lengthened by in 1933 to incorporate a Lands Office and Land Ranger's Office, and the rear of the courtroom extended to add a verandah flanked by 2 storerooms. Then Assistant Chief Architect of the Queensland Government Harold James Parr drafted the alterations. Electricity, water and septic toilets were installed in 1933.
The vast majority of timber buildings built in North Queensland have traditionally relied on use of elevation, verandahs, and cross ventilation from windows to keep them cool. More elaborate conventions included regulating fanlights, ceiling vents and louvered openings on both sides of the roof or in gable ends. The second Innisfail court house incorporates these more common ventilation features with more advanced techniques. Plans and sections showing extensions to the building in 1933 reveal an elaborate ventilation system to cope with Innisfail's hot and humid climate. The system featured latticed ventilation spaces in the ceiling that delivered hot air into pipes in the ceiling and out through a cupola-shaped ventilation fleche in a decorative casing on the court house roof. Although not in use since the building's removal from Innisfail in 1988, the necessary elements of the ventilation system are still present in the ceiling. Bell (1984:178) confirms that intact examples of ceiling ventilation such as this are rare, as many have been removed or destroyed during installation of electric lights or ceiling fans. At floor level in the courtroom the lowest wallboards were hinged so they could be opened to increase airflow. Fanlights, sash windows and louvres assisted with ventilation. In 1934 a ventilation grille was installed behind the Judge's Bench and casement windows installed in the Jury's Room. Although electric fans were first installed in 1938, and by 1990 there were 18 fans in the building, these upgrades have not affected the material fabric of the system.
While it is known that similar ventilation techniques were incorporated into other public buildings such as schools and post offices or other court houses during this period and earlier, the system within the second Innisfail court house now at Yorkeys Knob is rare in its survival in North Queensland. In all, the building has seven ceiling ventilation spaces attached to the ducting system and roof ventilator via metal hoods in the ceiling above them. This configuration is preserved intact and remains in the ceiling space.
Between 1920 and 1930 the total population of the Johnstone Shire ballooned from 5,549 to 18,088 people and the number of recorded dwellings rose from 700 to 3,130. The sugar districts of the north Queensland coast experienced a boom during the 1930s and it was considered necessary to expand the court house facilities in Innisfail to cope with the increasing amounts of official and legal business. In 1937 plans were drawn up for a new 2-storey brick court house, which was completed in 1939.
Timber and iron buildings are well adapted for removal and modification for re-use, and in north Queensland this has been a common response to changing economic conditions in settlements, such as mining towns. Bell considers that this was probably one of the influences on the design of timber buildings, and that it was not unusual for relocated buildings to undergo modification on re- erection, for stylistic or functional reasons, rather than be reconstructed to original forms.
The timber court house was moved to an excavated site at 8 Edith Street in 1938, placed on concrete stumps and adapted for use as the Innisfail Police Station, which opened in 1942. The front offices became a Day Room, CIB office, storeroom, Sub-Inspector's office and public enquiry rooms. One corner of the verandah was enclosed for a Senior Sergeant's office. The courtroom was divided into single men's accommodation, with 6 bedrooms and a recreation room. The front double stairway was lengthened and one set of steps was removed to facilitate car parking underneath the building. The room partitions were constructed from fibro cement and the side verandahs were screened with lattice.
Other changes to the building that occurred when it was used as a police station include the installation of a fibrous cement partition between the Public Office and the Enquiries Room (which subsequently become a Radio Room), removal of a partition between the storeroom and Sub-Inspector's office and its replacement with a high arch partition, enclosure of the back verandah of the court room for use as 3 offices, and installation of a toilet on the side of the courtroom building. Several of the casement windows were replaced with louvres and most of the verandahs were enclosed.
A carpark was proposed for the site of the police station in 1988, and the building was purchased by Frank Fisher and Bea Masschelein for relocation as a private residence. It was moved to its present location at Buckley Street, Yorkeys Knob, on the northern beaches of Cairns. The front section of the building was sawn in half to facilitate removal, while the courtroom was removed in one piece. To fit the building on its new block, the arrangement of its two sections has been altered. The courtroom was placed to the eastern rear of the block (to the right of its original position) and joined to the front section by a verandah at the front and rear.