> Some of my family were born in the New Guinea Estate. The area is now > known > as Toowong. My understanding is the estate was bounded by Mt Coot-tha > Road, > Walter Street, Birdwood Terrace, and Richer Street. I would like to hear > from anyone who may have any information including maps of how this estate > evolved and who were the buyers of the blocks of land within the estate. I am not sure if any of this will help you. Generally there isn't a lot of importance to estate names. When a property developer subdivides a large chunk of land for residential housing, they come up with some name that they think attractive for advertising purposes. It doesn't have any bearing on what the official suburb name is, although some estate names do get used by locals, but are generally not known by the wider community. I have lived in a neighbouring suburb (Chapel Hill) for over 20 years and never heard the term New Guinea Estate used. People do use the term "Birdwood Terrace area" as a way of describing the western part of Toowong (as most people think of Toowong in terms of where the large shopping centre is which is much further east) but that term would encompass a much larger part of Toowong than just the New Guinea Estate. The land is question isn't all that large, just a few streets of low-density housing (many are probably original homes). It's a little pocket of land surrounded by Toowong Cemetery (then Brisbane General Cemetery), Anzac Park and then a bit of bushland on a steep-ish hillside (you are in the foothills to Mt Coot-tha). About the only difference today from the past would be the straightening of Mt Coot-tha Road, as you will see on this contemporary map (URL below) where the Old Mt Coot-tha Road is shown. In my UBD from 1955 (the recently reprinted one), it shows Walter St as running more or less north-south, joining into Mt Coot-tha Road as a T-junction. Today Walter St has an extra kink towards the east to join Ada Street. So I presume that little extra kink that is now called Walter St was once called Mt Coot-tha Road. But it would seem that the roads of earlier times are all still in the same place, just slightly renamed so the new Mt Coot-tha Rd could retain the use of that name. So I think all the blocks of land in the New Guinea estate are probably all still there, although maybe some re-numbering might have occurred when that chunk of Mt Coot-tha Road became Walter St. http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=-27.472629,152.976787&spn=0.004284,0.007253&z=17 If you have a specific street address, I can go and photograph whatever's there. It's only a few minutes drive from home. There is a fairly active local history group for West Toowong, which has an interesting WWW site and maybe an email to them might be fruitful: http://www.toowongwest.org.au/ Kerry

Hi Kerry I use to live at 48 Richer St Toowong. It was sometimes called Richter Street. When I was a boy growing up in the bush around Mt Coot-tha, the old residents and shopkeepers would always refer to the area as 'The Guinea'. Comments like, "You're Ernie Hinton's boy from the Guinea!" was the usual greeting. Sometime after 1889 and definitely after 1910, the area became known as Toowong. As you say, it was a local name perhaps used by some developer. If you have a look at the roads, some are half finished eg Horrocks St was suppose to either join up with the original Mt Coot-tha Road or the bottom end of Richer Street. It was never completed. The same for the other end of Horrocks Street. The original Mt Coot-tha Road was windy as it followed the original surveyed track. Thanks for the offer to photograph. I have plenty of pics but have not been able to find anything on how 'The Guinea' came about. The National Library has a number of images of real estate maps but none of this area. I've yet to complete browsing through the old newspapers for the 1870-1890 period - a very slow process and time consuming. Cheers Doug -----Original Message----- From: aus-qld-brisbane-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:aus-qld-brisbane-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Kerry Raymond Sent: Wednesday, 28 May 2008 7:50 AM To: aus-qld-brisbane@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [AUS-QLD-BRISBANE] NEW GUINEA ESTATE - 27MAY 2008 > Some of my family were born in the New Guinea Estate. The area is now > known > as Toowong. My understanding is the estate was bounded by Mt Coot-tha > Road, > Walter Street, Birdwood Terrace, and Richer Street. I would like to hear > from anyone who may have any information including maps of how this estate > evolved and who were the buyers of the blocks of land within the estate. I am not sure if any of this will help you. Generally there isn't a lot of importance to estate names. When a property developer subdivides a large chunk of land for residential housing, they come up with some name that they think attractive for advertising purposes. It doesn't have any bearing on what the official suburb name is, although some estate names do get used by locals, but are generally not known by the wider community. I have lived in a neighbouring suburb (Chapel Hill) for over 20 years and never heard the term New Guinea Estate used. People do use the term "Birdwood Terrace area" as a way of describing the western part of Toowong (as most people think of Toowong in terms of where the large shopping centre is which is much further east) but that term would encompass a much larger part of Toowong than just the New Guinea Estate. The land is question isn't all that large, just a few streets of low-density housing (many are probably original homes). It's a little pocket of land surrounded by Toowong Cemetery (then Brisbane General Cemetery), Anzac Park and then a bit of bushland on a steep-ish hillside (you are in the foothills to Mt Coot-tha). About the only difference today from the past would be the straightening of Mt Coot-tha Road, as you will see on this contemporary map (URL below) where the Old Mt Coot-tha Road is shown. In my UBD from 1955 (the recently reprinted one), it shows Walter St as running more or less north-south, joining into Mt Coot-tha Road as a T-junction. Today Walter St has an extra kink towards the east to join Ada Street. So I presume that little extra kink that is now called Walter St was once called Mt Coot-tha Road. But it would seem that the roads of earlier times are all still in the same place, just slightly renamed so the new Mt Coot-tha Rd could retain the use of that name. So I think all the blocks of land in the New Guinea estate are probably all still there, although maybe some re-numbering might have occurred when that chunk of Mt Coot-tha Road became Walter St. http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=-27.472629,152.976787&spn=0.0 04284,0.007253&z=17 If you have a specific street address, I can go and photograph whatever's there. It's only a few minutes drive from home. There is a fairly active local history group for West Toowong, which has an interesting WWW site and maybe an email to them might be fruitful: http://www.toowongwest.org.au/ Kerry Toowoomba Dead Persons Society www.audps.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUS-QLD-BRISBANE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message