page_title: Shafston House
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Shafston House / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Shafston House at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: Shafston House is a heritage-listed villa at 23 Castlebar Street, Kangaroo Point, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Robin Dods and built from 1851 to 1930s. It is also known as Anzac Hostel, Ravenscott, and Shafston International College. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 7 February 2005.
context_section_description: Shafston house stands on a large site which slopes down to the Brisbane river at Kangaroo Point. Buildings include the original house and its kitchen (1851), the former ward block (1919), the former orderlies' accommodation (1928), the former postal depot (1936), a recent garage and a very recent two-storeyed adjacent to the kitchen.
  The one-storey brick and stone residence features a highly pitched gabled roof, attic rooms and cellars. The walls rest on foundations of Brisbane tuff and the roof, once shingled and then slated, is clad with terracotta tiles. To the rear is the original detached brick service wing, also on a Brisbane tuff stone foundation.
  The style is Gothic-revival, with exterior decoration including: elaborate plaster mouldings to bargeboards; timber pendants in the gables; dormers; and quoining to the projecting front gables.
  The southern front projection features a bay window with corrugated iron roof and awning. At the northern end, French doors open onto a faceted balcony with a steeply-pitched iron roof and cast-iron balustrading of a circle and cross-brace pattern. The main entrance is defined by a rendered masonry portico off-set to the south of the small front verandah.
  Internal walls are mostly rendered brick and the floorboards are of pine. The main reception rooms feature coffered ceilings. The ornate friezes, cornices and dados in the principal rooms, which were restored in the early 1980s, are thought to date from the 1880s.
  Joinery throughout is of cedar, with the early twentieth century renovations reflecting the influence of the Art Nouveau movement. The extent of RS Dods changes are not known but the fireplaces and much of the internal joinery and panelling, especially in the stairwell and doorways, are attributed to him. Dods probably added the diagonally glazed window panes in the upper windows.
  A number of other structures have been erected in the grounds, the most significant of which is the large ward block constructed in 1919. This is a single-storey low-set timber building on stumps. The ward was designed as open-sided, but has since been excavated under to allow for the construction of new accommodation, enclosed and extended and substantial changes made to the immediate setting.
  The fine entrance gateway from Castlebar Street with cast iron gates and posts and adjoining cast iron fence set on sandstone plinths and pillars survive as some of the early fencing. The form of the driveway sweeping around the front of the house from Castlebar to Thorn Street can be distinguished, but these have been paved and parking bays added. Some stone paving from the kerb to the property boundary at Castlebar Street remains.
  The terraced lawn between the house and the river remains reasonably intact, but remaining areas have been much altered to provide paving and parking. Some large and mature trees on the northwest boundary survive including a fig tree near the former orderlies cottage.
  Close to the river some brick and stone retaining walls of an apparently early date survive.
caption: View from riverside lawn, 2015
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