Mount St Mary's Convent, Heritage convent in Toowong, Australia
Goldicott, renamed Mount St Mary's Convent, is a single-storeyed concrete residence of 1885 at 50 Grove Street, Toowong, measuring 15 by 15 metres with 3-metre-wide verandahs on all sides and walls 4.6 metres high. Its outer concrete walls are 23 centimetres thick and the inner walls 15 centimetres, with timber floors and a slate-clad roof; the concrete mix used greenstone quarried on the site.
The Sisters of Mercy bought the property in 1902 and turned the former Goldicott residence into a convent to support their teaching mission. This change marked the start of many years of school activity serving the local Catholic community.
The Sisters of Mercy bought Goldicott at the May 1902 auction of the subdivided estate, needing housing while they staffed a new parish school in nearby Holland Street, Toowong. They moved in and renamed the house Mount St Mary's Convent in 1903, converting the front room at the northeast corner, probably a former bedroom, into a chapel. In 1916 Archbishop James Duhig made Toowong a separate parish from Rosalie and placed it with newly arrived Jesuit Fathers.
The house stands at 50 Grove Street, Toowong, on a 1.23-hectare site, and is now owned by Brisbane Boys' College, so it is not open as a public museum. Its single storey is wrapped by 3-metre-wide verandahs, with walls 4.6 metres high. The property was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 26 November 1998.
The concrete mix for Goldicott used greenstone quarried on the site, described in 1885 as strongly impregnated with quartz. Outer walls were 23 cm thick and inner walls 15 cm, with 4.6 m high walls and verandahs 3 m wide on every side. The Brisbane Courier reported the method in July 1885.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,739 contributors worldwide.