A picturesque, pink structure that still offers a striking impression to CBD-goers, the School of Arts is one of the region’s iconic buildings opening to the public as part of Bundaberg Regional Council’s Australian Heritage Festival celebrations.
The Bundaberg School of Arts will be open for free self-guided tours on Saturday 3 May from 9 am to 3 pm.
Schools of Art were established in Queensland from 1849, offering lectures, discussions and lending libraries to working class people and a rising middle class.
Bundaberg’s first School of Arts was a simple weatherboard structure, followed by a new timber building in 1880.
The more impressive masonry building existing today was designed by architect Anton Hettrich and completed in April 1889.
It featured a library, committee room and rooms for rent on the ground floor, and a natural history museum, chess rooms and a large reading room opening onto a timber verandah on the upper level.
A gallery was added to the library room in the early 1900s, which was later used by Bundaberg Art Society.
Today the Bundaberg School of Arts is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register, noted for its importance as an example of a major regional School of Arts and for its architecture.
Local resident Varelle Cox joined the committee of the Bundaberg Historical Society in the 1980s when the society occupied rooms on the upper level of the building.
“There had always been a museum here in this building, and sometime between the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, that collection was dispersed,” Varelle said.
“Nobody ever knew what happened to it, or where it went.”
The Bundaberg Historical Society, led by local woman Agnes Baker, began to rebuild the collection.
“When I was on the committee, we started a card system for the collection and tried to research some of the stuff to find out where it came from.
“Back then, they charged 50 cents for people to come in, so there wasn’t a lot of money.
“This building at the time was run, and owned I suppose, by a Trust, but there was never any money for anything, so eventually the Council decided they would take it on.
“They got a grant from the National Trust, I think, to stabilise the building.
“When they restored it initially, it did look nice and it certainly was a lot better than it had been before, because it was in a fairly poor state.”
Bundaberg Regional Council Arts and Heritage portfolio spokesperson Councillor John Learmonth said the recent work to repair the verandah was part of Council’s ongoing maintenance of this important part of the region’s history.
“The ongoing use of heritage buildings is very important to ensure their continued maintenance and conservation,” Cr Learmonth said.
“The School of Arts building is used regularly for meetings and activities but is generally not open for the public to walk through.
“The open day is the perfect opportunity to explore this gem of a building, and to take your own turn up the grand sweeping staircase.”
Read more about the history of the School of Arts here, and see it for yourself at the open day on Saturday 3 May.
