Highgate Hill

Highgate Hill is a riverside inner southern suburb of the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Highgate Hill is a riverside inner southern suburb of the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Highgate Hill had a population of 6,194 people.

Before British settlement, the Highgate Hill area was a hunting ground for indigenous people from nearby camping grounds, such as the one at the base of Highgate Hill. Up until the late 1850s this camp, near Dorchester Street and Somerville House School, continued to be used. A corroboree ground was located at "the pineapple paddock" in Baynes Street. The name of the Highgate Hill area in the Turrbal or Jagara language wasBeenung-urrung which meant frilled lizard.The banks of the Brisbane River were described as a tropic wall of tall figs, emergent hoop pine, vines, flowering creepers, staghorns, elkhorns, towering scrub palms, giant ferns, and hundreds of other varieties of ferns, beautiful and rare orchids, and wild passion flower. Remnants of this vegetation exist in a number gullies in Highgate Hill leading to the river.In convict times, saw pits existed in the area along the river between Dauphin Terrace and Boundary Street. Convicts felled timber on Highgate Hill for use in the fledgling town of Brisbane.Among the first European residents was George Wilson and his wife and family of 8 who built a homestead in Bellevue Street in the 1860s. He is thought to have named the locality Highgate Hill (possibly after Highgate Hill in London), however the name first appears in an advertisement for a land sale in 1864 by Nehemiah Bartley of the "Highgate Hill Estate" located at the peak of the hill. The large portions of land from early land sales were slowly subdivided into residential blocks, and advertisements mentioned the notable residents of the area to emphasise its attractiveness. However the lack of water proved to be an obstacle to significant take up. Water had to be collected in rain water tanks when possible or fetched from springs in the West End area. This problem was solved by the completion in 1889 of the Highgate Hill Service Reservoir near the corner of Dornoch Terrace and Gladstone Road. The reservoir is still in use todayIn 1902, the electric tram was extended up Gladstone Road, stimulating suburban growth. By 1929 the area was considered one of Brisbane's dress circles.

The density of the suburb began to increase with redevelopment and the building of flats during the interwar years. Westbourne Street provides a good example of the redevelopment of large properties in this period.On 10 December 1949, the foundation stone of the Park Presbyterian Church was laid at 21 Hampstead Road (27.4827°S 153.0160°E? / -27.4827; 153.0160? (Park Street Presbyterian/Uniting Church, Highgate Hill)). The congregation had previously had their church at 31 Glenelg Street on the corner of Cordelia Street in South Brisbane but the changing demographic of South Brisbane into an industrial area saw families move away to more residential suburbs and so the decision was made to build a new church in the more residential suburb of Highgate Hill. The name "Park" was carried over from the previous church which had been located opposite Musgrave Park. When the Presbyterian church entered into the union that created the Uniting Church in Australia in the 1970s, this resulted in an oversupply of church buildings in many communities. In September 1976 the Park Presbyterian church became the Park Uniting Church for the Brisbane Tongan congregation.Development continued after the Second World War with the notable construction of the 22-floor Torbreck, Brisbane's first apartment tower, on Dornoch Terrace in 1962.Continued development has led to community protest at times. In 2002 there was extended protest over the development of two hectares of bushland, known as the Gully, when a developer obtained a permit for nearly 30 dwellings to be built on it. In 2016, there was community protest over the demolition of three heritage houses in Jones Street which had not been given heritageby the Brisbane City Council.In the 2011 census, Highgate Hill had a population of 5,824 people.In the 2016 census, Highgate Hill had a population of 6,194 people.