Brady claimed that he always advised on arrangement, style and materials, but it appears that his Senior Assistant, Thomas Pye supervised much of the detailed design.
[1] In October 1903 the Commonwealth requested the Queensland Department of Public Works to prepare sketch plans for the building and to survey the site.
This comprised dining and sitting rooms, four bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, scullery, store, rear verandah and front piazza.
In addition to Woolloongabba, these included post offices at Ipswich (1900), Stanthorpe (1901), Cairns (1906, no longer extant) and Mount Morgan (1910).
[1] The ground floor of the building has undergone several alterations, as the spaces were re-organised to suit the changing functions of the post office.
[1] The former Woolloongabba Post Office is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with cement dressings and hipped corrugated iron roofs, located on the corner of Stanley and Hubert Streets.
It is richly decorated, and makes a prominent contribution through form, scale and detail to the predominantly parapeted commercial streetscape of Stanley St.[1] Originally constructed to accommodate a post and telegraph office on the ground floor, and a residence on the first floor, the form and detail of the exterior of the building is skilfully designed to articulate the domestic and public roles of the building.
The post office is composed as a single major volume under a hipped roof with ventilated gables, with an attached tower over the entrance vestibule at the corner of Hubert and Stanley Sts.
[1] The two street-facing elevations have horizontal tripartite ornamentation, comprising: a square-snecked rubble stone plinth; cement string course to ground floor sill level; coarse aggregate rendered walls to the piano nobile; and unrendered brickwork expressed as pilasters above a first floor string course.
The main entrance to the former residence on Hubert St comprises a timber-lined barrel vault supported on delicate metal brackets, over a central door with a coloured glass arched fanlight flanked by single windows.
On the first floor, the former residence partition walls have been removed, however the remaining large space retains its timber lined ceilings, a single fretwork ceiling ventilator panel, a former kitchen fireplace, and a fireplace in the south eastern corner with fine timber panelling and ceramic tiled surrounds.
Some of the decorative ironmongery remains, including wall ventilator panels, escutcheon plates, and a teardrop-shaped door handle at the ground floor entrance.
[1] The ground floor has also undergone substantial alterations with the installation of new partitions for offices and new ceilings, but retains a central cast-iron column and panelled beams traversing the former large mail room.
Both the population boom and the substantial masonry post office building at Woolloongabba are illustrative of the late 1890s/early 1900s economic high on which Queensland entered the 20th century.
The former post office, located within the predominantly commercial Stanley Street streetscape, displays fine quality public architecture with a strong civic presence.