Day 1, Archaeology of the Queen’s Park Conservatory

This was our first day on-site, and it was an absolute beauty, apart from the surprising turn of events, weather-wise. Notwithstanding this, we managed to achieve rather a lot, even if conditions were a little ‘damp’. 

After asking the backhoe driver to gently scrape the top layers of over-burden off, we caught our first glimpse of the brick foundations. We followed these and exposed the southern and the eastern foundations of the building, almost in their entirety. A great result!

  

With the foundations exposed, our next objective for the coming days is to excavate down into this 2×2 m square in the south-east corner. It is here, inside the building, that we can expect to locate the highest density of artefacts pertaining to the late 19th century and early 20th century. More on that tomorrow!

As usual, we couldn’t do this work without the generous assistance of our USQ Archaeology students: Leanne Bateman, Alyssa Madden, Peter Stainton, Drew Rickard, Fredrick-John Santos, Eddie Thangavelu, Wendy Van Der Spoel and William Rutherford. Thanks also to the School of Arts and Communication, USQ and the Toowoomba Regional Council. 

Members of the public are very welcome to come along and have a look at what we are doing. We will be working here until Friday the 3rd of July. Anyone who would like to share pictures, stories or memories of the Queen’s Park conservatory are invited to contact Lara Lamb directly on lamb@usq.edu.au