Nundah (previously called German Station) is an inner suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It contains the neighbourhood of Toombul. In the , Nundah had a population of 13,098 people.
Prior to European settlement, Nundah was inhabited by Aboriginal people from the Turrbul tribe. Nundah is primarily a residential suburb, which straddles Sandgate Road, one of the major arterial roads of Brisbane's north. It was first settled by Europeans in the mid-19th century, although the suburb remained primarily a rural area until it was connected to Brisbane via railway in the 1880s. Originally considered a working-class suburb, the area has become gentrified in recent years, and today features a mix of traditional worker's cottages and modern high-density apartment blocks. It is close to the Centro Shopping Centre.
Geography Nundah is a mixed-density residential suburb, with some light industry and a commercial retail area concentrated on Sandgate Road. It is adjacent to the suburbs of Clayfield, Northgate and Wavell Heights, and is dominated by a large ridge that runs from the northwest to the southeast. The "Nundah Village" shopping district and Nundah State School are on this ridge, while the George Bridges Tunnel bisects it along Sandgate Road.
The North Coast railway line passes through the suburb entering from Clayfield to the south and exiting to Northgate to the north. The suburb is served by two stations:
Toombul railway station in the south of the suburb (). Nundah railway station in the north of the suburb ().
The suburb includes the locality and formerly distinct suburb of Toombul, which is centred in the south of Nundah, around Sandgate Road. Various facilities in Nundah are named after this locality, including Toombul Shopping Centre, Toombul bus interchange and Toombul railway station.
Schulz Canal runs through Nundah, bisecting the Toombul Shopping Centre Carpark. The low elevation of the carpark makes it particularly susceptible to flash flooding during peak storm seasons – often claiming the cars of unwary shoppers inside the centre and those attempting to cross the Melton Road bridge. The estuary of the canal is a moderately popular recreational fishing spot.
Zion Hill is at (), and was named after Zion (Jerusalem) by the German Moravian missionaries of 1838.
History
Aboriginal history Like most of Northern Brisbane, the area around Nundah was dominated by the Turrbul tribe. Their traditional coastal trade route passed through Nundah, near the modern-day Hedley Avenue. There are also many significant Aboriginal sites near Nundah, such as Dinah Island, which was reportedly the site of the last traditional Aboriginal burial in the Brisbane area. There were a number of bora rings in the area, indicating that the Nundah area was densely populated by Aboriginal people before European settlers arrived.
European settlement
German mission The first permanent European settlement in the area was a mission built in 1838 by German Moravian missionaries,These missionaries were:
Peter Niquet – mason (married) August Rode – cabinet-maker (married) Johann Leopold Zillmann – blacksmith (married) Gottfried Haussmann – farmer (married) Wilhelm Hartenstein – weaver (married) Carl Franz – tailor Gottfried Wagner – shoemaker August Olbrecht – shoemaker Ludwig Doege – gardener Moritz Schneider – medical missionary (married) Carl Wilhelm Schmidt – ordained minister Christoph Eipper – ordained minister under the guidance of Reverend Carl Wilhelm Schmidt and later Reverend Christoph Eipper with the aim of bringing Christianity to the local Aboriginal people. They first called the area "Zion", and the mission was located in the vicinity of the modern-day street "Walkers Way". It later became "German Station". The explorer Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt visited the area in 1843, and spoke very highly of the mission, but despite this the mission met with limited success and was closed at the behest of the colonial government in 1846. This first settlement is nonetheless commemorated with a monument at the corner of Sandgate Road and Wood Street unveiled in 1938 by the then Premier of Queensland William Forgan Smith. The names of these German settlers can be seen in the names of streets in Nundah and surrounding suburbs such as Rode Road and Gerler Road.
Growth of the village of German Station A prominent local citizen who contributed significantly to the development of the village of German Station was George Bridges (1820–1898). George and his young family immigrated from Wilstead, Bedfordshire, England to Queensland in 1852 aboard the "Marie Somes". In 1855, he acquired of land north of Buckland Road and east of Sandgate Road for farming. However, as Sandgate became an increasingly popular holiday destination, the increasing volume of coach traffic along Sandgate Road encouraged him to open a hotel in 1866, which became a popular stop being roughly halfway between Brisbane and Sandgate. The first hotel was called the Kedron Hotel but the third and longest-running hotel was known as the Kedron Brook Hotel and was located alongside Sandgate Road (now Bage Street, named after Freda Bage, first principal of The Women's College, University of Queensland) on the SW corner of his property. Emboldened by the success of his hotel ventures, George Bridges looked for other commercial opportunities. He observed that Sandgate Road at that time did a dog-leg around the SW corner of his property (along Buckland Road) which forced traffic to travel up and over Donkin's Hill. So he created a short-cut across the SW corner of his property that avoided the hill, which was much appreciated by the travellers, allowing George Bridges to sell off parcels of land along this new unofficial piece of Sandgate Road to commercial enterprises, which serviced both the travellers and the local farming community. This unofficial short-cut grew into the Nundah Village shopping street that exists today and eventually became the official route of Sandgate Road. Around 1872, George and his wife Mary retired to Burpengary and began to progressively sell off the land of their German Station property as the village developed.
Creation of the suburb of Nundah A call for tenders for a non-denominational chapel in German Station was advertised in July 1855 . The chapel was open for Christian services on Thursday 6 December 1855. About February 1859 the chapel was acquired by the Baptists; the Wesleyans had first right of refusal but did not purchase it. The Baptists held their opening services on Sunday 20 February 1859. In 1874 it was relocated to Hendra to become the Baptist Church there, as many Baptists in Nundah had moved to the Hendra area.
On Sunday 24 April 1859, the Wesleyan congregation opened their recently erected chapel.
German Station State School opened on 2 October 1865 and was renamed Nundah State School in 1895.
German Station remained an agricultural area until the 1880s. In 1881, Queensland State Government purchased a strip of land across George Bridges's property to build a railway link between Brisbane and Sandgate. The railway opened in 1882 and resulted in a suburban residential construction boom on Brisbane's northside. This urban sprawl was also encouraged by the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885, which mandated minimum lot sizes for new urban developments. The village of German Station became known as a location where working-class families could obtain cheap housing on reasonably sized lots not too far from the city. George Bridges sold off his remaining land for residential development in the new suburb.
A railway station called German was created in 1882 (again on land originally owned by George Bridges), because they wanted the station to be called German Station rather than German Station Station. However, six weeks after the railway station opened, it was renamed Nundah. The name Nundah is a corruption of the Yuggera language, Turrbal dialect word nanda meaning chain of water holes. This name is probably a reference to the nearby natural water sources at Kedron Brook and the marshy areas formerly to the east of the suburb. In 1888, the name of the Post Office was also changed to Nundah, signalling the renaming of the new suburb. However, the name German Station persisted for many years. For many years it was common to find references to Nundah with the annotation "formerly German Station" in newspapers and advertisements, until the name Nundah was well established.
In 1883, William Alexander Jenyns Boyd relocated his Eton Preparatory School from Milton (where it was established in 1877) to Nundah, where he erected new buildings at a cost of £3,000 on a site. In 1889 Boyd was forced to close the school due to economic hardships preventing families being able to afford to send their sons to boarding school, but he re-opened the school in 1891. However the impacts of the 1893 Brisbane flood forced him to close the school permanently. In June 1893 the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Advent acquired Eton House to run a boarding school for orphan girls called The Home of the Good Shepherd, which in 1894 also took in paying students as well with Miss Isabelle Caine as headmistress under the management of Sister Emma. In 1897 the orphans were relocated to Ormiston Place, leaving Eton House as a private boarding school known as the Eton High School for Girls. In 1907, the school relocated to Toorak House in Hamilton and then in 1910 to Albion Heights (now Ascot) where it is known as St Margaret's Anglican Girls' School. In 1907 the St Francis Anglican Theological College moved into Eton House under Canon Tomlin. In 1936-7 the theological college relocated to Bishopsbourne in Milton. By June 1937, Eton House had been sold for removal and its grounds subdivided, but the site is believed to be bounded by Bishop Street, Buckland Road, Wand Street and Olive Street (). Boyd Road leads to this area and presumably commemorates Boyd who established the site.
In 1889, the Baptist church building at Fortescue Street in Spring Hill (built in 1876) was relocated to Nundah (now 19 Chapel Street, ). The Nundah Baptist Church officially opened on Sunday 9 June 1889. The church building is still extant, although modified and no longer owned by the Baptist church; one of its subsequent uses was as the Anglican Church of the Resurrection.
From 1890, Nundah was the seat of the Shire of Toombul, which was absorbed into the City of Greater Brisbane in 1925. The Toombul Shire Hall still exists as a community centre.
In 1900, Laura Tufnell, the widow of Edward Tufnell (a former Anglican Bishop of Brisbane), donated money to establish an orphanage in her husband's name. The funds were used to purchase of land at 230 Buckland Road (). Tufnell Home was established by the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Advent. It opened on 6 February 1901 and closed in 1993.
In 1909, Surrey Street in Nundah became the site of the first public housing dwelling in Queensland. In the early twentieth century, Nundah became a major suburban centre, due to its location on Sandgate Road, one of Brisbane's busiest arterial roads, and the adjacent Nundah railway station. Sandgate Road and nearby streets were lined with shops, pubs, cinemas and other commercial premises.
St Joseph's Convent and School was dedicated and opened on Sunday 16 January 1916 by James Duhig, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane. The site consisting of Marston House and of land was donated by Harry Donkin. The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart came from Sydney the previous week to operate the school. It heralded the welcome return of the order to Brisbane after an absence of 36 years after Archbishop James O'Quinn directed the order to leave his diocese in 1879 following disputes with Mary MacKillop over control of the schools operated by the Sisters.