Plus: what's hidden under the lino, a 1903 house photo, a TB Sanatorium, and an old QLD company!

[@GrahamHouston-y9j]

Love your channel and the history you unfold looking forward to more

[@thehousedetective]

Oh thank you, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment with your feedback! 😊

[@kristyhaysart]

My grandparent's old house (842 Brunswick St) had layer upon layer of newspapers under the wallpaper, us kids used to peel the wallpaper off to read the old newspapers.

[@thehousedetective]

How awesome!

[@emmahoy6304]

Thank you for another great ep 😊

[@thehousedetective]

You are very welcome! 😊

[@sandramackin9817]

How beautiful is the old photo of that family. Can't recall seeing such a casual photo before . What a great find.

[@thehousedetective]

Thanks!! I’m glad you shared my excitement at finding it! 😊

[@sandramackin9817]

@@thehousedetective could look at this pic for ages. Love their faces, the animals, the house, everything about it but can't work out if it's a butter churn or washing machine 😅 Scratching my head on that one but think a butter churn. Also I think there was a Canungra Pine creek Tramway out there somewhere too.

[@johngibson3837]

​@@thehousedetectiveI think it has to be a butter churn also I doubt that cube tank is cast iron because of the rivets holding it together, love your enthusiastic passion

[@lunauga7759]

I live near James st I'm so glad the house was bought and not demolished.

[@thehousedetective]

Me too! The new development will completely change the streetscape sadly, but at lease the house lives on!

[@MadonnaMead]

As always, fascinating information. So great the cottage from the Valley is being restored.

[@thehousedetective]

Isn’t it! Thanks for your kind words 😊

[@BradGryphonn]

With regard to newspaper under lino. Many years ago while working in Western Queensland, we came across an abandoned homestead. Me, being a bit of a quiet history geek started looking under the linoleum. I found a very short story in this 1947 newspaper that reported how a company was planning on building a fully Australian car in Australia. It may well have been the very first report of what would become the Holden.

[@thehousedetective]

Omg! How amazing!! Also, that is totally something I would do if I came across an abandoned house! 😂

[@BradGryphonn]

@thehousedetective I only wish I still had the clipping. Yes, I tore it out of the floor and hung onto it for a while. Sadly it was in my wallet when it got stolen (the wallet) about 6 months later.

[@robfos3040]

I wonder if that large keg in the first photo could be a washing machine of some sort?

[@thehousedetective]

Ooh that’s an interesting idea!! It very well could be! It’s right near the water tank too!

[@dannywarner2995]

19 Walton street Dutton park, and Walton street in general would be a great place to research, lots of stories in that street and the old biscuit factory that used to be on the corner still has some heritage window arches and brick wall there

[@thehousedetective]

Yes! I agree! I have researched a house near there and came across the biscuit factory history! Bet it smelt great to live near that!!

[@andersdottir1111]

The large barrel in the first picture could be an early washing machine. Hand operated

[@thehousedetective]

I think you’re right! A few people mentioned that!

[@austinvert8626]

Hi there, Hand screens or sieves as they were also known, were quite popular back in the day with people living on the land or cities. My father owned a couple over the years, and his main usage was for a variety of landscaping, concreting and gardening projects around our suburban home. I still use mine on rare occasions to carry out similar tasks as well. Very handy for small jobs needed doing around the home. So anything that needed sifting, the sieve was the go to tool for the job. Also, the exterior walls looks like common sawn weather boards. Cheers, Greg.

[@thehousedetective]

👍 Good to know I got the sieve ID right! It’s hard to see on screen, but in the high res version of the photo you can see the cladding on the part of the house on the right is definitely chamfer boards, whilst the building on the left is clad in weatherboards.

[@whalan4509]

I think it may have been use also to spurt the husk from the grain as thay didn’t have harvesters like we know earlier on they use a sickle or scythe. My father use them al so in a commercial bakerie to sieving bread and cake flour Ps love your work HD ( House Detective )

[@jillbirtwistle3155]

I have one. It’s a garden sieve. My Dad used it to sieve garden soil for potting up seedlings. Also used for preparing soil to seed a new area for lawn. Although I’m sure it’s a useful tool with many uses.

[@peternicholsonu6090]

Cubic iron water tank would have been plate iron like ship building. Cast iron would not have the strength in thus application

[@thehousedetective]

What’s the difference between plate iron and cast iron? Isn’t it the same thing? Large water tanks for refilling steam trains were cast iron in Australia, so it’s definitely strong enough 👍

[@peternicholsonu6090]

@@thehousedetective cast iron has no bending strength when flat which is why the casting includes ribs when used for railway yard refill tanks. Cast iron is high carbon therefore brittle and was used for structural members again with ribs or angles cast in. Flat iron tanks were riveted. Flat iron mild steel could belly out under load but cast iron would break. Maybe check with the railway enthusiasts.

[@jesusislukeskywalker4294]

👍🏻 great episode , i love history

[@thehousedetective]

Hey thanks! Me too… if you couldn’t tell 😂

[@damonroberts7372]

About the photo first up: Röhr rhymes with "fur"... although for an Aussie audience I should add the final "r" is rolled, not dropped. It's an ethnically German surname, and refers to people who lived where lots of reeds grow. There were a lot of German migrants who settled in the Lockyer Valley, West Moreton and Scenic Rim regions in the 19thC, including some of my ancestors. My late grandfather (Dad's side) grew vegetables, and used a sieve just like that for separating seeds, like onion seeds, from the husks/chaff. So my guess is the farmer in the photo is feeding the waste chaff to the chooks. I think your guess about that barrel-shaped object being a large butter churn is probably correct.

[@thehousedetective]

Fantastic, thank you!! That sounds very plausible about the sieve use. It’s crazy what a huge role German immigrants played in establishing so much of QLD isn’t it! I mean they were the very first free settlers in Brisbane other than the convicts and military! And yet they are so unrecognised in general. I think it was as a result of German heritage being covered up during the wars and German achievements and contributions being ignored by communities and some contemporary historians for the same reasons!

[@whalan4509]

Or could it be an old type washing machine what do you think 🤔

[@damonroberts7372]

@@thehousedetective Yes, the World Wars had a pretty major effect. Some settlements went as far as to change their name (e.g. the town of Kalbar was known as Engelsburg until 1916). The tragic irony, the stories I've heard passed down through family are of people who left their homeland to _get away_ from Prussian militarism. Like many in that wave of migration, my ancestors were Anabaptists, and likely spoke the Low German (Plattdeutsch) dialect, which would be barely intelligible to most German speakers today. This was the same wave of migration that gave rise to the Amish and Mennonite communities in the US, but on the whole the 19thC Australian-Germans seem to have assimilated. Edit: One thing I saw down in Melbourne that I absolutely loved was their Immigration Museum. I wish Brisbane had something like it, there are so many stories in Queensland waiting to be told.

[@SmallWonda]

The classifiers/sieves that he is using to feed the fowls is also called a riddle and we used to use it for making a fine tilth in the garden. It's the sort of thing the kids could do - I used to do it for my Grandad donkey's years ago. But yes, it would be used for gold mining, too - different size holes so you classify out the larger rocks - they are still used today. It could be he was sieving some grain & the chaff was being fed to the birds. The big churn on the porch I'm sure I've seen somewhere, perhaps Woolmers in TAS, or back in England - it seems to have hefty gears on the outside, so I'm thinking it's more for milling something - seems a bit hefty for butter, as many of the larger churns were churn-like or just had a simple handle for turning - it doesn't really take that much power to make butter. I don't suppose it was anything to do with gold mining - as rocks are often pulverized...? Very interesting show, thanks for that lovely photo.

[@thehousedetective]

Oh how fascinating, thank you! Yes I thought the same thing about the handle/gears on the “churn”, that it was overkill for butter. Maybe it was some kind of mill or processor for mining 🤔

[@fractalmusicj]

Those sieves look to be the size of ya earrings. Another great vid, keep up the good work

[@thehousedetective]

😂😂😂

[@mrfomiatti5515]

Thanks for sharing House Detective. Have you heard about Wynnum Fringe is embarking on an ambitious project to rescue, reimagine, and revive the Augathella Spiegeltent, an iconic cultural asset originally known as the Q150 Shed. Designed by 5th generation Belgian Spiegeltent masters the Klessens, and constructed in Brisbane. Now erected Bay Terrace Wynnum Central.🐨

[@thehousedetective]

No I hadn't heard about this, thanks! Will check it out!

[@ParadiseBlue1866]

Interesting about returned soldiers suffering from TB. My grand-uncles (returned soldiers suffering from TB) were advised to migrate from Scotland to Queensland for their health. Sadly, they both died n their thirties.

[@thehousedetective]

Oh how interesting, but very sad 😢

[@frodosadventures8757]

That looks like a ship's tank to me. A water tank out of a ship. Made from flat pannels riveted together.

[@thehousedetective]

👍

[@muddyboots007]

The sieve is probably to keep rubbish out of the water tank and the square tank was actually a ships tank the predecessor to containers. They were filled with freight on ships including passengers luggage etc and it was common to use them for English crockery. To capture water, this one has the round entry to the tank upright but they were normally stacked with the hole and it's cover in the side with the cover either hinged on one side and secure with a bolt protruding from the tank and a large nut with steel handles welded onto it screwed the lid down.More commonly,there were two or three bolts and handled nuts rather than a hinge.ive come across these many times at clearance sales and in farm sheds and many times ,they were lined with tar paper and the name Wedgewood easily readable on the tar paper. They were used for many purposes on the old ships including to hold fresh water for the voyage and judging by the amount I've seen ,they were unloaded from the vessel and the contents remained in them Perhaps they were exchanged as pallets are today.

[@thehousedetective]

Ah very interesting, thank you! Those tanks always remind me of the HUGE elevated ones they used on the railways for re-filling steam trains! They probably came over in ships in the early days too!

[@fionakinlyside]

The little green cottage is gorgeous what a shame it was burnt so badly

[@thehousedetective]

Wasn't it cute! I agree!

[@melstephen5191]

😊😊😊😊😊

[@thehousedetective]

Thanks 😊

[@delmabond9800]

Love your shows. The newspaper under the Lino was used to keep out the draft coming through the floorboards as well, according to my Mum, born 1925. Looking forward to your next episode. Thank you.🤗🌸

[@thehousedetective]

Thank you! 😊

[@elephantgiftstore]

No 1. is a wonderful photo. My first thought was the sieve was used to separate husk from grain, not by anything falling through but by airflow through it to blow empty husk out. But... surely chooks can do that themselves, it still could be leftover grain from breadmaking. The barrel is a hand-cranked washing machine.

[@thehousedetective]

Interesting! Could well be! Someone else said they thought the barrel was a washing machine too! Fascinating!

[@elephantgiftstore]

@@thehousedetective you can find the washing machines online (second hand of course). The sieve thing is called winnowing, found that online too. :)😁

[@davefenton102]

Grain sifter.

[@thehousedetective]

👍

[@davefenton102]

@@thehousedetective I dont actually know the proper name for it, but on second thought, I would call it a thing that's used to sift and separate grain from smaller debris and the outer husks. The step before this is beating the heads of wheat to knock the individual grains out of them. After that, the sieve is used to sift out the small debris, and to toss the grain in the air to get rid of the husks and other light plant material. By tossing the grain in the air, the lighter husks blow away in the breeze and the heavier grains fall back in the sieve, hopefully, I'd imagine they got plenty of practice though.

[@SmallWonda]

Very interesting and entertaining, informative and nicely supported with photos & details. Thank you, you've gained another subscriber!

[@thehousedetective]

Oh thank you so much!! Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for subscribing!

[@leeny1871]

So many fascinating finds Maryanne! 🙂 Love your channel and research stories. That first photo of the the farmhouse and family was a great find. You got so much information from one photo!! 👏

[@thehousedetective]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@robfos3040]

I found an illustration of a similar looking contraption in an old book I have - I'll try and forward it to you via your website :)🙂

[@thehousedetective]

Oooh excellent! Thank you!

[@divarachelenvy]

keep up the great work..

[@thehousedetective]

Thank you so much!!

[@geoffmccoll4640]

Looking for lithium iron batteries in 2056?

[@thehousedetective]

???