Brisbane is a popular holiday destination owing to its culture, climate and the natural attractions. However, Brisbane’s oldest non-living resident is in the form of the Old Windmill. The building has many sides to it and many stories to tell, some of which are rather murky and violent. The Old Windmill was constructed during the 1820s by convicts and it stands today as the oldest surviving windmill in all of Australia.
In its initial stages the windmill was looked upon as somewhat of an atrocity – mark of penalty and crime. This was mostly due to the fact that the Commandant Patrick Logan employed the help of convicts under him to ensure that the arms of the mill never stopped rotating. The convicts had to endure harsh weather conditions, very little or no working gear and attire and were not given enough breaks as a form of paying for their crimes. The only way, locals say, which the convicts could get away from the windmill was to eventually pass out of exhaustion, over-strain or dehydration. It is also said that two convicts of Aboriginal origin were hung here as a lesson for others to learn from and one of them was actually buried on the grounds of the mill itself. The windmill transformed into a signal station by the year of 1861 and continued to fire a gun at 1 in the afternoon daily.
The Old Windmill is usually not open to the general public and from the outside there is very little that one can imagine of what the interior looks like. However, call it the murky past of the building or its mysterious present; many visitors are drawn to the site. There are quite a few Brisbane CBD hotels such as the Oaks 212 Margaret and many others in the city that provide accommodation to the constant influx of tourists that visit Brisbane.
Fritzjames Stephen is a travel writer, who writes content based on the myriad of experiences and indulgences that the world has to offer travellers across all walks of life. Google+
