Old Toowoomba Court House, Heritage-listed courthouse in East Toowoomba, Australia.
The Old Toowoomba Court House is a two-storey brick building with a hip roof and clerestory, built 1861–1863 at 90 Margaret Street. A symmetrical enclosed veranda with a steeply pitched corrugated iron hip roof fronts the core, and a small single-storey cottage stands at the rear. Behind it, the 1864 gaol boundary wall of roughly dressed stone footings and unrendered brick rises about 12 feet, with tapered buttresses and a sloped brick coping.
The first Toowoomba courthouse was designed by the Colonial Architect at a cost of £2,018/6/4 and opened in January 1863 on Margaret Street, the road linking Brisbane to Toowoomba. A new courthouse nearer the town centre replaced it in 1876-1878. In 1882 contractor J Nock converted the old building into a female reformatory for £993, adding the clerestory and a small detached hospital; it closed after the Boggo Road Female Division opened on 3 October 1903.
The building became the Austral Museum in 1904 and continues to display regional artifacts and collections. It remains an active community space where local events and gatherings take place throughout the year.
The courthouse sits at 90 Margaret Street in central Toowoomba near Queens Park. Visitors will find the building active as a museum and community venue, with parts of the original external structure still visible today.
The gaol's stone-rubble boundary wall was kept when the site became the Austral Association Hall: architect William Hodgen used it as two walls of the hall, which cost only £1,495 to build. The wall is about 12 feet high, with tapered buttresses and a sloped brick coping.
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