Auchenflower
The riverside suburb of Auchenflower is located 3.5 kilometres west of Brisbane's CBD on Milton Road.
Hilltop Aboriginal campsites exploited the wetlands along the Brisbane River, including areas now occupied by parkland. The sites served as temporary accommodations for indigenous groups travelling along the Brisbane River to gathering points in the Brisbane CBD.
The area was surveyed and settled in the 1850s, when business figures established rural estates, which were later subdivided into residential allotments. Brisbane ironmonger John Ward bought a five-hectare block on the river side of Milton Road in 1876 and built a substantial house on the highest ground. Queensland Premier Thomas McIlwraith made major additions when he bought the estate for £2700 in 1880. McIlwraith named it Auchenflower after his family's estate in Ayrshire, Scotland. The name is Gaelic, meaning fertile fields or fields of flowers.
After McIlwraith' returned to Scotland in 1895, Auchenflower House passed through several owners. The estate around the house was subdivided in 1903. Over the next decade, Auchenflower developed into a commuter suburb.
The suburb suffered severely in the 1893 floods, when the waters rose over the railway lines, and again in 1974. Flood-mitigation measures upstream on the Brisbane River could not prevent the suburb's lower areas from going under again in 2011.
Image: Section of the plan of portions 203 to 257 in the environs of Brisbane, parish of Enoggera, County of Stanley, NSW (Brisbane : Surveyor General's Office; Out of copyright; State Library of Queensland: https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE428688
Sources:
Queensland Places: https://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/auchenflower
Toowong and District Historical Society: http://toowonghistory.org.au/auchenflower/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auchenflower,_Queensland
Links:
John Ward
Thomas McIlwraith
Auchenflower House
1893 Brisbane floods
1974 Brisbane floods
2011 Brisbane floods
