Baddow House

On the corner of Russell and Queen Street stands Baddow House (1883), a grand riverfront home built for one of the first European inhabitants of Maryborough, Edgar Aldridge. The house overlooks the adjacent original town site (1847), where Aldridge had established a hotel in 1849. In 1850 a new township had been surveyed downriver and the townspeople moved there, slowly abandoning the old site. Aldridge stayed and purchased properties here. He grew sugar, the first to do so in the area, and established the viability of this industry, which grew to form one of Maryborough's most prosperous. By the early 1880s, Edgar Aldridge, reputedly the wealthiest man in town, commissioned architect Willoughby Powell to design Baddow House and it was built by Carl ‘Fritz’ Kinne in 1883. It is a fine example of the high quality work of both men and includes a rare surviving example of a sophisticated water reticulation system of underground tanks and high level cisterns to feed the house. Edgar's time in the house with his family was unfortunately short. His wife, Maria, died in 1886 and Edgar paid for the construction of two substantial memorials to her within Maryborough - St Thomas's Church of England and the large free-standing bell tower for St Paul's Church of England - that were completed in 1887. Edgar died in 1888, no longer a wealthy man, and the house passed to his son, Henry Edgar, who lived there with his wife, Lappy until 1910. Afterwards it fell into disrepair in its fairly remote, riverside location on the outskirts of Maryborough. Over time, new owners made repairs and the house was briefly a popular museum. In 2003 new owners purchased the house and commissioned extensive renovations, restoring the house's lost verandahs. In 2007, owner and Queensland author, Anne De Lisle published ‘A Grand Passion; A Memoir’ about the house, substantially raising its profile. Baddow House remains a private residence and is not publicly accessible.