Redcliffe real estate

The Ningy Ningy people occupied the Redcliffe Peninsula before European settlement. The Aboriginal name for the place is Kau-in-Kau-in, and it means Blood-Blood, a red like blood. A Bora ring of two separate circles, one large and one small, joined by a ritual pathway, once stood between Kippa-Ring and Anzac Avenue. Aboriginal people travelled there from as far away as Noosa to perform initiation ceremonies. The council razed the rings around 1950.

The town's name comes from Red Cliff Point, which the explorer Matthew Flinders named for the red cliffs at Woody Point. Flinders first visited the area on 17 July 1799. The explorer John Oxley recommended Red Cliff Point to Governor Thomas Brisbane as the site of the new Moreton Bay penal colony.

A penal colony began at Redcliffe on 13 September 1824 under Lieutenant Henry Miller, with 14 soldiers, some of them with wives and children, and 29 convicts. Redcliffe became Queensland's first colony that year, and it is described as the first European settlement in the state. John Oxley reported that ships could land there whatever the tide and come close to the shore.

The colony was abandoned after one year, and the settlement moved south to North Quay on the Brisbane River, 28 kilometres away, where the water supply was more reliable. That move led to the establishment of Brisbane, now the capital of Queensland. In the 1860s the district became a pastoral one.

In the 1880s Redcliffe boomed as a seaside resort town. Ever since, it has been a popular place for holidays in South East Queensland. In 1878 a subdivision named Portwood Estate, around the present Portwood, Sheehan and Sylvin streets, was offered, its lots described as "large, elevated, picturesque, salubrious". The estate lay in Humpy Bong, which the advertisement called "the fashionable watering place" of the future.

That estate map showed the Redcliffe railway line ending at a station just north-east of the estate, near present-day Macnaughton Street. The Redcliffe Peninsula railway line did not open until October 2016, 138 years later, and its terminus was built in neighbouring Kippa-Ring. The Ramsgate Estate was advertised for auction in October 1881, with about 60 allotments. Redcliffe State School opened circa 1888 and shut in 1909. In 1909 a new Humpybong State School opened on a central site, combining Redcliffe State School and the older Humpybong State School.

From 1911 the Koopa, a twin screw excursion steamer, ran regular trips to the jetty at Redcliffe. The main passenger route was a steamer service linking Sandgate pier with Woody Point Pier. The Hornibrook Bridge was completed in 1935. It joined Clontarf to Brighton, and it gave motor cars a way to reach Brisbane and return easily, which led to rapid suburban development. The steamers between Sandgate and Woody Point stopped. The toll on the Hornibrook Highway was removed in 1975.

Redcliffe's state high school opened on 3 February 1958. That same year a family from Manchester, England, emigrated to the area, and three of the brothers in it later formed the Bee Gees. In 1959 a Brisbane speedcar driver who promoted the Redcliffe Speedway, at the Redcliffe Showgrounds, asked the three brothers to entertain the crowd from a truck during the interval. It was the first public performance by the three brothers.

One of the brothers later wrote to the Redcliffe Museum about that night, remembering the smell of the oil and the noise. He noted that this was the first public appearance the three made in Australia, and that money from the crowd landed on the track. The letter to the museum also recalled a Brisbane DJ and racing driver who suggested a new name for the group and played their songs on his radio show. That letter described Redcliffe as the birthplace of the Bee Gees.

The first high-rise apartment building was built along Marine Parade in 1974. For decades interest in similar development was limited: until 2000 the peninsula had only four apartment buildings above six storeys. Interest in Redcliffe as a seaside lifestyle precinct returned in the 2000s and 2010s, and high-rise and mixed-use development is found along the coastline. The Redcliffe Library opened in 2000.

Several places in Redcliffe are heritage listed. They include Anzac Memorial Avenue, the Redcliffe State High School buildings on the corner of Klingner Road and Oxley Avenue, the Redcliffe Fire Station at 395 Oxley Avenue and Comino's Arcade at 133 to 137 Redcliffe Parade. The former Redcliffe Town Council Chambers at 185 Redcliffe Parade are on the list as well.

People also use the name Redcliffe for the whole peninsula, the strip of land that reaches into Moreton Bay and holds several other suburbs. The red cliffs at Woody Point, visible from the bay, gave the town its name, and the town's own shore lies on the western side of the water.