Brennan & Geraghtys Store

Brennan & Geraghtys Store is a heritage-listed shop and National Trust-run museum at 62–66 Lennox Street, Maryborough, Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia.

[1] Maryborough was established at its present site in 1852 as an outlet for the trade of the Wide Bay and Burnett pastoral districts.

Wool, tallow, cedar and kauri pine flowed outwards with backloads of essential supplies for the stations providing a thriving trade.

Timber was milled there and the strong impetus provided by the discovery of gold at nearby Gympie in 1867 soon established Maryborough as a prosperous commercial and banking centre.

Brennan worked for some time as storekeeper at Kilkivan station and was involved in the early Gympie gold rush.

Geraghty, who married Patrick's sister Catherine in 1864, bought land in Lennox Street and built a cottage at no.

At the time, this section of the street supported a small commercial centre, including a hotel which was across the road from Geraghty's property.

However, in the following decade Brennan & Geraghty's business began to fail and in 1896 a meeting of the creditors decided to liquidate the firm.

The butcher's shop was demolished and Michael built a house on the site for his mother, Catherine, following his father's death in 1904.

The business continued to run until 1971, as George Geraghty wished to complete one hundred years of trading from the premises.

[1] The store is a large, timber-framed building on stumps with a gabled galvanised iron roof and a rendered brick facade.

The centre section contains a small store room in one corner and the rear space is open and without a ceiling.

Most stock items date from the interwar period but range from 1885 Canton tea to soap from the 1920s and toilet paper from the 1950s.

An almost complete set of trading records for the store dates back to 1871 and there is an extensive collection of advertising material.

[1] The structure of the shop is very intact and reveals a lifetime of changes which demonstrate the growth and recession of the business.

[1] The stables are sited perpendicular to John Lane at the rear of allotment 10 and are a single skin weatherboard structure with a gabled galvanised iron roof.

The garden is fairly intact with pathways and mature trees and is divided from the street by a timber fence and gates with a scalloped top and shaped pickets.

[1] Brennan & Geraghtys Store & two adjacent buildings and stables was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.