Kedron - Kedron Park Hotel

With the on-set of development, we so often see our older buildings lost to us, or changed beyond recognition. This similarly goes for our older or familiar landscapes and streetscapes, with development often resulting in the past being lost to us.

The various infrastructure works associated with the new northern busway and the Airport Link, could, in this way, be expected to completely overwhelm what few historical structures and landmarks that still survive in the Kedron area.

But, in the case of the historic Kedron Park Hotel, this doesn't appear to have happened.

View of Gympie Road, Kedron, ca. 1908, with the Kedron Park Hotel in the distance

Kedron Park Hotel, 1960

Although the roadworks are still underway, with the streetscape changing significantly, the Kedron Park Hotel, as an historic landmark, has become more dominant on the intersecting than it was previously. The reason for this is that the roadworks have opened up the area around the old hotel, making it easier to view this old Brisbane pub.

The Kedron Park Hotel was opened by Frederick Morris in 1881 and soon after, perhaps as a way of attracting more customers, he set up picnic type races on the land opposite the hotel. Although there was some early criticism of the way in which the race meetings were conducted, they were held here for many years.

Kedron Park Racecourse, 1922

It is also recorded that the hotel had a small zoo and that one of the hotel's more colourful publicans had a swearing parrot.