Welcome to the 4000 - Spring Hill
About this event
A 3.2km heritage ramble through Brisbane's oldest 'burb — plague stories, larrikin lore, the tiniest cottage you've ever seen, and a well-earned cold one at a pub that's been pouring since 1864. History hits different on foot.
Difficulty
29°C average (hot season)
The Route - 10 stops
The Lady Bowen Hospital
497 Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill QLD 4000
Starting point. Built in 1889 as a lying-in hospital for women — Brisbane's second Lady Bowen Hospital. Gorgeous heritage building on the terrace. Operated until 1938 when services moved to Herston.
View on Maps →Spring Hill Baths
16 Torrington Street, Spring Hill QLD 4000
Australia's last remaining covered baths, opened December 1886. The mayor rocked up in a regulation bathing costume and did a header off the springboard at the opening. Still retains original features including the dressing sheds. Women weren't allowed in the first year!
View on Maps →The Boundary Street Mural
495 Boundary St, Spring Hill QLD 4000, Australia
The Boundary Street Mural, Spring Hill Boundary Street has always been exactly what its name suggests — a dividing line. When Spring Hill was first developed in the 1840s, it marked the outer limit of Brisbane's inner city, and by the 1880s it was a bustling strip of grocers, boot-makers, drapers, butchers and four hotels. But the boundary had a darker meaning for Aboriginal Australians. After 4pm on Sundays, all Indigenous people were required to leave the inner city or face removal — often enforced by police using physical force. The 1897 Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act stripped further civil rights from Aboriginal people in public spaces, enabling forcible removal to designated camps, and continued to affect Aboriginal Australians until the freedom rides of the 1960s. Today, IES College at 495 Boundary Street confronts that history head-on. The school commissioned a seven-storey mural by Matt Adnate — one of Australia's most recognised large-scale wall artists, known for his photorealistic portraits of Indigenous Australians — to directly acknowledge the street's past. Painted in collaboration with Sheep Chen as part of the Brisbane Street Art Festival, the work depicts a young Indigenous person on the very street that once excluded them. Efforts to rename Boundary Street have been resisted on the grounds that renaming would erase the history so many have worked to protect. The mural takes a different approach — keeping the name, and making the history impossible to ignore.
View on Maps →The Johnson Brisbane - Art Series
477 Boundary St, Spring Hill QLD 4000, Australia
The Johnson Hotel, Spring Hill Built in 1967, The Johnson's 14-level modernist tower was designed by Austrian-born architect Karl Langer — one of Queensland's most influential architects and the man credited with bringing European modernism to Brisbane. Originally the largest reinforced concrete office building in Queensland, it served as the state's Department of Main Roads headquarters for 45 years before being sold and listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in 2014. Following a three-year renovation by the Deague Group, the building reopened in 2016 as part of the Art Series Hotel Group, dedicated to celebrated Australian abstract artist Michael Johnson. The renovation was sensitive to Langer's iconic grid facade, preserving the original tower as the building's dominant form while adding three rooftop penthouses with floor-to-ceiling perimeter glazing and sweeping 270-degree views of the Brisbane skyline. The jewel of the renovation is the MK50 — a 50-metre rooftop pool and sundeck on level five, designed by Olympic gold medallist Michael Klim. North-facing and resort-style, it offers iconic views over Spring Hill's jacaranda-lined streets and tin-roofed cottages, and has become the hotel's signature space.
View on Maps →The Former Spring Hill Tavern
149 Fortescue St, Spring Hill QLD 4000, Australia
This building was constructed in 1879 by bricklayer William Jackman, who ran an unlicensed tavern from the premises. Closed in 1888 after it had become the source of public discontent, the building has gone on to serve a number of purposes, both commercial and residential.
View on Maps →Mrs Long's Cottage
116 Isaac Street, Spring Hill QLD 4000
One of Brisbane's tiniest houses — built in 1884 on just four perches (101m²) of land. Built for Mrs Elizabeth Long after her husband left her with nothing. A local heritage place and a powerful reminder of Spring Hill's working-class roots. Private property.
View on Maps →Rogers and Victoria Streets
134 St Pauls Terrace, Spring Hill QLD 4000
One of Spring Hill's most picturesque pockets of intact 19th-century cottages. In 1890 this was home to a music teacher, stonemason, vanman, labourers, a mariner, cook, painter, tailor and fruiterer. Brisbane Central School nearby is the last remaining state school in the inner city.
View on Maps →Spring Hill's Larrikins (St Pauls Terrace)
St Pauls Terrace, Spring Hill QLD 4000
In the late 1800s, teenage 'larrikin pushes' terrorised Spring Hill — fighting, gambling, harassing women. In 1899 a resident reported three fights in half an hour on Leichhardt Street. The gap between school-leaving age (12) and factory work (14) left boys idle and mischievous.
View on Maps →Former Hospital for Sick Children (St Paul's Presbyterian Church)
43 St Pauls Terrace, Spring Hill QLD 4000
Beautiful stone Presbyterian Church (1887-1889) designed by FDG Stanley, Queensland's Colonial Architect. Before the church, this was Brisbane's first children's hospital, founded 1877 by Mary McConnel. The Brisbane Hospital had refused to admit kids — calling them 'troublesome and noisy'.
View on Maps →Alliance Hotel
320 Boundary Street, Spring Hill QLD 4000
Final stop — you've earned a drink! A pub has stood on this site since 1864. The current building dates from 1888, designed by John Beauchamp Nicholson (who also did the Norman Hotel and Princess Theatre). Still serving today. Grab a cold schooner and toast Spring Hill's resilient history.
View on Maps →Organised by
AUD 10.00
50 spots remaining