Brisbane Part 3- The Commissariat Stores Museum

I wasn't going to do another post on my trip to Brisbane but I decided that I really had to talk about the Commissariat Store Museum that I had never heard of and found out about by chance.

It was incredible and right in the heart of the city, only a couple of hundred metres from the Queen Street Mall so it's very easily accessible.

The Commissariat Store Museum is the oldest habitable building still standing in Brisbane and was made by the convicts during 1828 and 1829.  Well the bottom two floors were made then and the third floor was added on in the early 1900's.

The lower two floors of the current building are part of the original building and the bricks for these were cut from the Kangaroo Point cliffs just around the bend in the river.

The retaining walls surrounding the building were made from other various quarries around the area and the mortar was made from crushed shells from the Aboriginal middens over on Moreton Island where there was another convict settlement at the time.

The shells were mixed with sand which created a lime mortar to help hold the walls together.

The building still has the original beams holding it all together and you can see the rough hewn marks in them from when they were first made.

The lower floor is home to the early history of the city itself and how it was built around the convict settlement at this site.  There's plenty of models of the different buildings that were built there over time and other interesting information about the early days of the city.

There's even a clear panel in the floor which shows a section of the original drainage system under the building.

I was fortunate enough to have a lovely volunteer named Barbara as my guide.  You can explore the building and the museum on your own if you wish but if one of their volunteer guides are available then I highly recommend you take up the offer.  The extra stories and history that you find out is pretty incredible.

The middle floor has more Queensland history, not just Brisbane and includes a display on many of the shipwrecks as well as a section on the Great War.

I can't say any kind of straight jacket would be comfortable but this one looks pretty horrendous to me.

There's even a nice corner where you can sit for awhile and read some of the history of Brisbane and Queensland as well.

I'm so glad that I stumbled upon this wonderful little museum in the heart of the city which has also been the home of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland since 1981.

  If you ever get the chance to be in the city and have an hour to spare then I highly recommend you pop in for a visit.

Just to prove it is in the heart of the city.  The next photo is one I took on my first afternoon from South Bank looking across to the city centre before I had even heard about the place.  I've circled where the Commissariat Store Museum is for you.

The Commissariat wasn't the only Museum I visited.  There is also a very small, and free museum on the third floor of Brisbane's Town Hall.

I had about half an hour to spare before lunch one morning so decided to pop in and have a look.

The Museum itself only takes up a few rooms and has information regarding the history and the growing city of Brisbane.  Exhibitions are also held in rooms off the main museum area and there is usually a charge to go and see them.

Even if you don't head up to see the museum, it's worth walking through the front doors to look at the amazing foyer.

The foyer is really beautiful from the marble staircases one each side to the tiled floor.

The roof is pretty gorgeous too and then I remembered why the floor looked a little familiar.

If you have ever seen the movie The Phantom starring Billy Zane, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kristi Swanson and Treat Williams, then the New York Museum scene was filmed in this foyer (just a few thousand kilometres away on the other side of the world!)

A little movie trivia for you.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of the week.

xx Susan