Rosalie RSL Hall

Rosalie RSL Hall is a heritage-listed school of arts at 50 Elizabeth Street, Paddington (formerly Rosalie), City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Hall & Prentice and built from 1927 to 1928 by W Moody. It is also known as Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 6 September 2005.HistoryThe RSL Hall at Rosalie, formerly the Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall, is a large timber building roofed in corrugated iron. It faces Nash Street in Rosalie, a locality that is now part of the suburb of Paddington. Since opening in 1928 the RSL Hall has hosted a wide variety of community activities. The ground floor of the Nash Street frontage, below the level of the main hall, was designed to accommodate two shops.The first major land sales in the Paddington area occurred in 1859, when country lots were sold for £2/10/- an acre. The steep terrain hampered transport, and people sought ridge-top sites, timber cutting sites, or cultivated vegetable patches on the lower ground closer to the river. The first tracks followed the ridgelines, and it was along these narrow corridors that closer development initially occurred. In the late 1870s, Paddington was known as "Ti Tree Flats", and its postal address was simply "back of the gaol", being outside the Hale Street boundary of the city. There was a village at Caxton Street, and some houses on Given Terrace. Further out, the scenery was dotted with trees, vegetable patches, goats, tents, humpies, cottages, and the odd elegant mansion. Johann Christian Heussler built the stately home Fernberg in 1865, and in 1920 the Queensland Government purchased it as a residence for the Governor. During the 1880s a pattern developed whereby shops were clustered near major intersections, the affluent occupied the highest ground, aspiring artisans occupied the slopes, and poorer citizens built in the gullies. The Ithaca Shire was created in 1887, and by 1903 Paddington was a densely populated suburb of the town of Ithaca. The tramway reached Latrobe Terrace in 1898, and Fernberg Road 1909, which spurred development.