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The Electorate
The Aspley electorate in Brisbane's northern suburbs is one of the most historial landmarks of Brisbane. Stretching from the Bald Hills, Carseldine, Bridgeman Downs, Chermside West and the McDowall regions, the Aspley electorate also takes in parts of the Zillmere and Bracken Ridge area and of course Aspley. Based in the heart of Brisbane's northern suburbs, Aspley is famously known for being situated along Gympie Arterial Road, Gympie Road and Albany Creek Road; the gateway to Brisbane City.
More than 40,000 people call the Aspley electorate home. If you're not sure if you're in the Aspley electorate you can click here: http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/state/state2009/Aspley/Map.pdf to find out or view the map on this page; click on the map to enlarge the image.
Aspley
The area was known as Soldier's Flat when it was first surveyed in 1859. During the 1890s it was known as Little Cabbage Tree Creek. By 1897 the district was named Aspley after the Morris family's orchard and vineyard, which had been established since the 1870s. Land parcels were eagerly bought up during the 1850s and 1860s. By the 1890s smaller subdivisions were being sold. A school, initially called Little Cabbage Creek School, had opened in 1890. The Royal Exchange Hotel operated from 1875 and served as the first general store. It was situated on Gympie Road opposite the Albany Creek Road intersection.
 In 1888 Huttons opened a smallgoods factory in nearby Pineapple Street, Zillmere. This provided employment locally and many farmers worked here when the seasons were bad. Timber getters also sold cordwood for the boilers. In 1890 land was subdivided into small urban lots to the west of Dorville Street. The estate was called Huttonville and was designed for factory workers. Slaughter yards operated along Kedron Brook, Downfall Creek, and Little Cabbage Tree Creek.
The area remained devoted to farming until after World War I when more small industries sprang up. These included Griffith's Sweet Factory, which opened on Gympie Road in 1920, Glanville's brickworks on Brickfield Road in the 1930s, and Hedge's Dripping Factory at the end of Lawrence Road, which opened in 1933. Further grocery stores sprang up in the area. Beckmans operated the first bakery and a service station operated from the 1920s to service the growing traffic on the Gympie Road.
Chermside West
The area of Chermside was originally named Downfall Creek. When the first school in the area opened in 1900, the teacher James Youatt disliked the name so much that he suggested renaming the school 'Chermside' after the newly appointed governor of Queensland. The name Chermside was formalised in 1903.
Although the earliest land sales were held in 1865, the area remained devoted to farming until early in the twentieth century. The first urban subdivisions were offered for sale at the turn of the century on either side of the old shopping centre on Gympie Road.
Chermside was the business centre for the surrounding districts in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Andrew Hamilton started up a blacksmith and coach-building business on his property in Gympie Road. Slaughter yards were common and in 1891 a tannery and wool wash was built as an offshoot of the slaughter yards. When the government started up the Cannon Hill meatworks as a public abattoir in 1930, many suburban meatworkers became unemployed. This was a major problem in the Chermside area, where so many were involved in this industry.
The first general store, run by John Patterson, opened on Gympie Road in 1870. His store was also the receiving office for the mail. More businesses came to the area and the first official post office opened in William Sammells' general store on the corner of Hall Street in the early 1900s. Other small business included boot repairers, butcher shops, saddlers, and a sawmill. In 1927 Maurice Tilley built a theatre which was later named the Dawn .
After World War II there was a great demand for housing in the area. Much of Marchant Park and Sparkes Paddock had been used for training camps for soldiers. Many buildings remained after the war and these were used for temporary housing. After the tramline was extended from Lutwyche Cemetery to Chermside in 1947, the area became more accessible. Houses were built privately, by the Queensland Housing Commission, or by the Commonwealth Government as War Service Homes. By the early 1970s all the available land had been subdivided for housing.
In 1957 the first integrated mall-style shopping centre in Queensland opened in Chermside. It was built by Allan and Stark (later Myer) and was known locally as the Chermside Drive-in. The provision of car parking was a new concept for Brisbane shoppers. In 1972 a spectacular fire destroyed part of the shopping centre. The centre was refurbished in 1986, and in 1995 plans were made to extend the shopping centre over Banfield Street to include a major bus interchange.
Bridgeman Downs
 In November 1860, Henry St John Bridgeman bought land bounded by Albany Creek, Albany Creek Road, Bridgeman Road and Beams Road.
In 1877, Bishop James Quinn's Queensland Immigration Society purchased this land, presumably for the migrants he had bought from Ireland. The land became known as the Bishop's Paddock. However ultimately the land was leased out to mostly German immigrants, who initially cleared and fenced the land in lieu of lease payments.
Archbishop James Duhig subdivided the land in 1957. At that time the Brisbane City Council resumed part of this land, which Phillip Hulse had farmed, for a cemetery. In 1966 it became the Pinaroo Lawn Cemetery, which incorporated the Commonwealth War Graves Gardens of Remembrance.
Bridgeman Downs was gazetted as a suburb in 1975 and suburban development grew after this time.
Bald Hill s
The Gympie Gold rush of the 1860s really began development here. Cobb and Co started a service to the goldfields in 1867. The first railway into the area was completed in 1888 and at that time new subdivisions were being offered for sale between Telegraph Road and the railway and to the south of the current St Paul's School. However, it would appear that the area did not progress as rapidly as was hoped, partly due to the poor train service and expensive fares.
The next major housing boom occurred after World War II with the subdivision of the Richmond Heights Estate to the east of St Paul's in 1959, followed by the subdivision of the Eaton's property to the east of the highway in 1968. In 1974 the estates of the Carseldine, Feuerriegel, and Williamson families were subdivided into the Canterbury Estate, and more recently the Northwind Estate was developed along Wyampa Road.
Carseldine
 One of the early subdivisions in the Carseldine area was the Melrose Fruit Farms Estate, which was part of Aspley when it was offered for auction in 1914. The area subdivided was between Graham Road (then Zillmere Road) and Cabbage Tree Creek.
This area had been purchased by John Henry and Samuel Raynbird in 1860 and had been used for dairying since 1880. The land was described as having rich chocolate soil, suitable for bananas and pineapples, which were extensively grown in the region at that time. The land was only one mile [1.6 kilometres] from the Zillmere station and four miles [6.4 kilometres] from the Kedron Park tram.
Information sourced from www.ourbrisbane.com
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