Saturday, December 17, 2005

The Frost Family - Kincumber #2 - Brisbane Water Walk #7

My regular readers will be gobsmacked. For today there's the photos of the walk with the walk post. I did the walk while I was offline last month. Had to go to Kincumber a few times so I walked while I was there. At the same time I was walking in Tascott (BWW#6) so Kincumber became #7 and Point Clare, which I finished yesterday was #8. Confused? Me too. Check out progress map in the right hand column. It may not help.

Okay. On with the walk.

Avoca Drive, which is the main street in Kincumber and runs through the middle of the older half of Kincumber. The wee stone church is at the top end, on the corner of Empire Bay Drive. Next to it, on the downhill side, is a seventies cottage. Could've been built on the old frame of a Federation or pre-Federation cottage. The roofline certainly suggests it. But I'm not sure, it could also have been a sympathic design. Maybe someone didn't want to put some crass seventies design next to such a nice old church.

Anyways, in front of that cottage is an old wooden fence. It's falling down in places and if I hadn't done the research already I'd've put it down as maybe 1910. But my hist list has it at circa 1880. Cool. "House and post-and-rail fence, George Frost, 168-170 Avoca Drive". Local readers better be bloody quick if they want to see it. When I was there in November there was a for sale sign in front of it.

No 168-170 Avoca Drive
(Big version)
"House and post-and-rail fence, George Frost, 168-170 Avoca Drive".

These Frost guys must've been local big shots. There's an old shop and house at NÂș154, opposite the school. My hist list has "House and post-and-rail fence, Manasseh Frost, Avoca Drive (opp. Public School) ... 1901" and "Post-and-rail fence, former Frost property, Avoca Drive (opp. Public School) ... 1904". There's also "House, James Frost, 119 Avoca Drive ... c.1913" but that's gone and a seventies house is in its place.

No154 Avoca Drive
(Big version)
"House and post-and-rail fence, Manasseh Frost, Avoca Drive (opp. Public School) ... 1901" and "Post-and-rail fence, former Frost property, Avoca Drive (opp. Public School) ... 1904".

The house and shop has a helpful sign on the shop end saying "M Frost Kincumber Cash Store". Have a decko at the historical info sign on the pole near the gate. There's a photo on it of just the house part and what looks like most of the Frost family in front of it. The photo is circa 1919 and the people are down as "Mrs Amelia Triller Frost, Elizabeth (Lizzie?) Frost? Maud Frost ... Claire Riley, lan Frost, Nadia Frost (Mrs Atkins, Majorie Frost (Mrs Yamall), Doris Frost (Mrs Ticknell)". The house part on the right was built around 1901, the Post Office in the middle around 1905 and the store "added soon after" and "operated until the mid 1930s".

Manasseh Frost
(Big version)
I can't pick the bit that was the Post Office. Maybe it was one little room with a door on the side that's covered up by the store part. The info sign says the Post Office operation went "further west" to William George Humphrey in 1945.

Stone stumps
(Big version)
The Post Office end of 154 Avoca Drive. Notice the sheets of tin over the top of each stump to stop the ants eating the wood of the building.

Killuna Road was next. There's a foot bridge at the end of it going across the creek to the light industrial area on Cochrone Street. There was a wharf there in around 1850 but there's nothing now, just mangroves. The creek must've been a lot wider then. It's bloody narrow at the end of Killuna, you could barely get a canoe down it.

Most of Kincumber that I've seen so far has been the old places on Avoca Drive, some forties houses, a lot of seventies houses and eighties retirement villages. There's three retirement vilages down in the old part of Kincumber. Broadwater village had 578 letterboxes and at a guesstimate I'd say there's another 1450 retired letterboxes in the old part. Up on the hill there's Brentwood and that's a huge place, at least four times the size of Broadwater. So that's over 4000 retired letterboxes in Kincumber. About average for towns around Brisbane Water.

4 comments:

fin said...

Those houses are so cute!

Spike said...

Very. Though sometimes they still have an outdoor loo.

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Emmerson said...

Hi there I have just come across this blog in 2019. The house you show as frost house 168-170 Avoca Drive is not in fact Frost House. This house is 170 Avoca Drive. Frost House is next door at 168 behind blue security gates and sits directly behind the house you have photographed. It is a heritage house (not officially listed) and is restored to its former glory and owned privately. It is now part of what is called Frost Estate no.1 of 9 eco friendly homes.
Cheers.