Wickham Hotel is a heritage-listed

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

at 308 Wickham Street,

Fortitude Valley Fortitude Valley (often called "The Valley" by local residents) is an inner suburb of the City of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. In the , Fortitude Valley had a population of 9,708 people. The suburb features two pedestri ...

City of Brisbane The City of Brisbane is a local government area (LGA) which comprises the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Its governing body is the Brisbane City Council. Unlike LGAs in the other mainl ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. Originally trading as the Oriental, it was designed by

Richard Gailey Richard Gailey, Sr. (22 April 1834 – 24 April 1924) was an Irish-born Australian architect. Gailey was born in Donegal, Ireland and emigrated to Australia in 1864, becoming an influential and prolific architect in colonial-era Brisbane. He di ...

and built in 1885 by Cussack & O'Keefe. It was added to the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As a ...

on 21 October 1992.

History

The Wickham Hotel is a three-storeyed masonry hotel, constructed by the firm Cussack and O'Keefe in 1885 for Timothy O'Shea who had amalgamated a number of blocks in 1881. The design was by architect Richard Gailey who was also responsible for the design of several other hotels in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

during the 1880s. These included the

Regatta Boat racing is a sport in which boats, or other types of watercraft, race on water. Boat racing powered by oars is recorded as having occurred in ancient Egypt, and it is likely that people have engaged in races involving boats and other wate ...

Toowong Toowong is a riverside suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Toowong had a population of 10,830 people. Geography Toowong is situated between Mount Coot-tha and the Brisbane River and is made up of rolling hills w ...

, and the Prince Consort Hotel,

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

and

Jubilee A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of y ...

in Fortitude Valley. It was bought in 1895 by Denis O'Connor who owned it until his death in 1937. In 1972 it was sold to

Carlton & United Breweries Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) is an Australian brewing company based in Melbourne and owned by Japanese conglomerate Asahi Breweries. Its notable brands include Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught, Foster's Lager, Great Northern, Resch's, Pu ...

. For most of its existence, the Wickham Hotel has been leased to licensees. The hotel has undergone a number of modifications primarily on the ground floor. Single storeyed extensions have been built on the north-east and north-west sides, and a drive-in bottle shop was at one stage located at the hotel From 1996 the Wickham attracted members of the

LGBTI Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (such as genitals, gonads, and chromosome patterns) that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, ...

community and was known to be

gay-friendly Gay-friendly or LGBT-friendly places, policies, people, or institutions are those that are open and welcoming to gay or LGBT people. They typically aim to create an environment that is supportive, respectful, and non-judgmental towards the LGBT ...

Mark Alsop Mark Alsop is an Australian DJ and remixer. Alsop is one of the longest-continuous working DJs in Australia. He predominantly plays house music and tends to play at gay dance parties, bars and clubs. Specific genres played include electro house ...

was a resident DJ between 1997 and 1999. In 2014, it was renovated, re-opened and rebranded to attract a wider range of clientele, with the former car park being turned into an outdoor laneway type of space. The upstairs balcony was opened to patrons.

Description

The Wickham Hotel, a three-storeyed rendered brick building with basement, is located on the corner of Wickham, Ballow and Alden Streets. An

awning An awning or overhang is a secondary covering attached to the exterior wall of a building. It is typically composed of canvas woven of acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tightly over a lig ...

with

pressed metal ceiling A tin ceiling is an architectural element, consisting of a ceiling finished with plates of tin with designs pressed into them, that was very popular in Victorian buildings in North America in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were also ...

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

s over the footpath on the main facades facing Wickham and Ballow Streets. Below the awning the external wall of the ground floor is finished with

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

tiles, now painted. The walls above the awning are rendered and lined to suggest stonework and are embellished by horizontal bands at the sill and impost levels of the windows. The ground floor has rectangular timber

sash windows A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History T ...

. Windows on the first and second floors are arranged in an alternating pattern of paired narrow arched windows and wider single arched windows. A timber-framed

verandah A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

projects from the first floor. It has a rolled

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...

roof and ornamental

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

, posts, post

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

and

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

. The building has painted corrugated iron hip roofs with narrow overhangs supported on paired

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

s. Three rendered

chimney A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typic ...

stacks are located along the ridges of the roof. An L-shaped verandah is located on the northern corner of the first and second floors at the rear of the building. This verandah is enclosed on the north-western side by a three-storeyed painted brick extension housing bathrooms. Timber posts, balustrade, brackets and boarded frieze remain on the north east. Five sets of timber double doors provide entry from the street. The main entry, located on the Wickham Street facade, opens to a

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, reception area or an entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc. ...

which has a richly embellished plaster ceiling and

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and contains a generously proportioned timber stair leading to the first floor. The remainder of the ground floor has been refurbished and is occupied by bars, service areas and a bottle shop. Except for a bar located in the southern corner of the first floor, the first and second floors are used for accommodation. The main stair leads only to the first floor. It is connected by an L-shaped corridor to a narrow timber stair that runs between first and second floors. Internally the first and second floor retain much of the original fabric including rendered masonry walls, plaster

s and skirtings. Timber doors with transom lights open off the central hallway while doors leading to the verandah are half glazed with

fanlights A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. T ...

above. The finishes and detail of the facade and much of the interior of the ground floor have been altered. The rest of the building remains largely unchanged.

Heritage listing

Wickham Hotel was listed on the

on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. The Wickham Hotel is associated with a major phase in the development of Fortitude Valley. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The Wickham Hotel is an example of a large 1880s three-storeyed hotel with intact, cantilevered single storey verandah and contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. The Wickham Hotel is an example of a large 1880s three-storeyed hotel with intact, cantilevered single storey verandah and contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape. The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history. The building is one of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, extensive use of ornamental cast-iron and classical detailing.

References

Attribution

External links

* {{official website, http://thewickham.com.au/ Queensland Heritage Register Fortitude Valley, Queensland Hotels in Queensland Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register Richard Gailey buildings Hotel buildings completed in 1885 Pubs in Brisbane 1885 establishments in Australia