Cumbooquepa is a heritage-listed house at Somerville House, 253 Vulture Street, South Brisbane, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by George Henry Male Addison and built in 1890. It is also known as Brisbane High School for Girls. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
Cumbooquepa is a large single-storeyed house built in 1890 on a ridge overlooking the South Brisbane Reach of the Brisbane River.
The land was acquired in 1856 by Thomas Blacket Stephens, a politician, newspaper proprietor and businessman, who became Brisbane's second mayor. Stevens built a timber dwelling called Cumbooquepa on the property. He died in 1877 and management of his estate passed to his eldest son, William Stephens, a politician, businessman and first mayor of South Brisbane.
In 1890 the Stephens family moved into a new house designed by GHM Addison where they lived until the early 1900s. This second Cumbooquepa was built on a higher part of the site, a short distance from the original which was demolished in 1890 to make way for the south coast and southern suburbs railway line.
The house remained in the family until 1919 when the property was acquired by the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association as the new premises for the Brisbane High School for Girls. In 1920 Somerville House was added to the title of the school honouring Mary Somerville, a Scottish scientist whose name was also associated with Somerville College at the University of Oxford. Constance Elizabeth Harker and Marjorie Kate Jarrett, important for their contributions to female education in Queensland, were the co-principals of the school from 1909 until the retirement of Miss Harker in 1931.
An L-shaped two-storeyed educational block was built in 1920 to a design by architects Chambers and Powell with an extension containing a gymnasium and chemistry and biology laboratories completed in 1926.
A two-roomed library building designed by Thomas Brenan Femister Gargett as a memorial to CE Harker was opened in 1935 and extended to include an art studio in 1939–40. The former library includes memorial stained glass windows by William Bustard. It was probably the first purpose-designed library building at a girls' school in Queensland. Recently altered, the building is now used as a chapel.
Early in 1942 Somerville House became General Headquarters, United Army Forces Far East, United States Army Services of Supply and Base Section 3. TBF Gargett, architect to the US Army, was responsible for adapting the school buildings for the army. During this period the school relocated, reopening at South Brisbane in January 1945.
Since the Second World War various classrooms, a five-storeyed science wing and sporting facilities have been erected. The Constance Harker Hall was built during the 1970s. It houses an 1888 pipe organ by Alfred Hunter & Sons of London.
Description
Somerville House comprises structures and landscaping elements, including paths, walls and cuttings on the large triangular block bounded on the north side by Vulture Street and on the west by the railway line. The buildings situated on the main Vulture Street frontage are Cumbooquepa in the north eastern part of the site and, in the northwest corner, the former library/studio building.
Cumbooquepa, a single-storeyed masonry and timber house with terracotta tiled and corrugated iron hip roofs, is located on the highest part of the site overlooking the Brisbane River to the north. It is deliberately sited to present a grand hilltop facade addressing the city. Much of the ornament is lavished on this northern facade, the other sides of the building being relatively modest in materials and detail. The house is constructed of red brick on a patterned brick and stone base with timber verandahs to the side and rear elevations. Originally E-shaped in plan, the long northern facade connects central, eastern and western wings arranged around two verandahed courtyards. The central wing contains the entrance hall, reception rooms, dining room and kitchen while the eastern and western wings are used to provide accommodation for boarders and staff.
The north elevation is a symmetrical composition consisting of bow-fronted pavilions on the eastern and western corners connected by colonnades to a central entry pavilion surmounted by a tower. This front facade is embellished with arches, pediments, quoins, cornices, parapets, balustrades and pilasters with Ionic capitals that are rendered to contrast with the brickwork.