Great Northern Hotel

Townsville architects Tunbridge and Tunbridge designed this grand hotel. It was commissioned in anticipation of the extension of the railway terminus to Blackwood Street. The government announced plans for the new terminus in 1900 and the property owners, timber firm, Wilson Hart & Co, wasted no time in planning for this strategically located hotel. The two-storey brick building features wide verandahs with bullnose roofing, cast-iron balustrading and friezes. The ground floor verandah posts are decorated with fluted columns. This first class hotel reputedly offered superior facilities to the colonial hotels in town. The Great Northern opened in July 1901 and was marketed as the hotel closest to the new terminus of the Great Northern Railway – hence its name! The railway station building was not erected until 1914, but this did not slow trade for the hotel. For more than 125 years, this hotel has provided a popular social venue in Townsville and is a well-known asset to the city’s townscape.