Glen Lyon, Ashgrove, Heritage villa in Ashgrove, Queensland, Australia.
Glen Lyon is a two-story brick residence featuring wide verandahs with cast-iron balustrading and Corinthian pillars, topped with a central stained glass window inscribed 'Semper fidelis'. The house sits on Glenlyon Drive and retains original bunya pines lining the entrance drive along with multiple marble fireplaces inside.
Built between 1876 and 1877 for merchant Alexander Stewart, this house formed the heart of a large estate stretching along both sides of Enoggera Creek. After decades as a private residence, it later became a monastery serving the Marist Fathers.
The chapel beside the house began as a detached billiards room, gun room and cellar built in the 1880s or early 1890s, with steps down to a tennis court. It is a small rendered brick building with a corrugated-iron hipped roof, bay windows and arched porches, and most of its windows hold stained glass. The stained glass above the main staircase carries the Stewart family motto, Semper fidelis, while the lion's head crest once beneath it has been replaced by the Virgin Mary and Child.
Glen Lyon is a private residence and is not open to visitors; the house and its outbuildings stand on a reduced site of about 0.78 hectares. The bunya pine avenue planted along the front drive, now Glenlyon Drive, can be seen from the street. The former detached dairy, externally intact, has been converted into a toilet block.
The house was constructed using bricks made by South Sea Islander workers from clay found directly on the property grounds. This local brick-making process made the building itself a record of the laborers who shaped it.
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