Watson Brothers Building, Heritage-listed warehouse in Brisbane, Australia.
The Watson Brothers Building is a three-story brick warehouse with an ornately decorated frontage. Its facade displays pilasters, segmental arches, and a carved frieze above the ground floor windows.
Architect Richard Gailey designed this structure in 1887 for the Watson Brothers Plumbing Company. The firm expanded to become Queensland's largest plumbing enterprise by the early 1900s.
The firm's name survives on the facade, and the building stands in Frog's Hollow, the low-lying district between George and Edward Streets that was farmed by convict labour in the 1820s and 1830s. By the 1880s it had become Brisbane's main light-industrial and warehousing precinct, close to the wharves along Eagle Street and Petrie Bight.
The building sits on Margaret Street and is straightforward to locate. Ground floor spaces now serve as parking facilities and a café for visitors.
The rear workshop's upper level was reached from a laneway running along the side of the building, a detail easy to miss from Margaret Street. The warehouse stood in Frog's Hollow's metal-working quarter, near Smellie & Co. and Overend & Co., and shared its architect with three other 1887–90 warehouses nearby.
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