Queensland Country Women's Association Girls' Hostel 1.49

Queensland Country Women's Association Girls' Hostel is a heritage-listed detached house at 5 Brisbane Street, Ipswich, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was built from to. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.HistoryThe building was constructed about 1885 as a single-storey timber house for Thomas Towell and his second wife Sarah. When Towell died about 1904, the property passed to his widow Sarah. The next significant owner was Dr Edward Elmslie Brown who bought it in 1908. Within the next three years, Brown added a second storey. Brown used the enlarged building as a residence and consulting rooms and built a timber hospital "Oakdale" adjacent with its entry facing Milford Street. He later added a second hospital building and a matron's residence. Brown died in 1941 and the house was bought by the Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) in 1949 for use as a hostel for students and young women. A single-storey brick building containing several residential units for elderly women was built adjacent to the house (on the corner of Brisbane and Milford Streets) and is known as Melody Lodge. One of Dr Brown's hospital buildings in Milford St is now a QCWA hostel for aged people. The matron's quarters in Milford St is now a residence. The second hospital building was destroyed by fire in the late 1980s at which time it was a boarding house.DescriptionThe building is a large two-storeyed timber structure with chamferboard external walls surrounded at both levels by elaborately decorated verandahs. A single storey laundry wing extends at the rear and is connected to the central hallway by an enclosed rear verandah. A skillion-roofed cement clad ablutions block, probably of construction, is connected to the north-west corner of the ground floor verandah. The front has plantings of palms and hedges, particularly the distinctive double palms each side of the main entry.