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Celebrating 100 years – Bardon, what’s in a name?

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Joshua Jeays

The name ‘Bardon’ ultimately dates from the early 1860s – Joshua Jeays, builder and council alderman, paid £78 for 16 hectares of land west of ‘Upper Paddington’ (his land was between Simpsons Road, Cooper’s Camp Road and Ithaca Creek, and immediately above what is now Bowman Park). Jeays built a country house which he named ‘Bardon’, after Bardon Hill in his native Leicestershire.

The house remains, and has been part of the St Joseph’s School in The Drive since the mid-1920s. At the time, Jeays was a member of the committee overseeing the construction of the Enoggera Reservoir and pipeline to the town, and possibly saw this land whilst carrying out an inspection of the proposed pipeline route (which ultimately passed through his ‘paddock’).

The nearby Bardon Estate (which included the future Bowman Park) was subdivided and sold in 1915. ‘Upper Paddington’ was subsequently renamed ‘Bardon’ when the suburb was officially created
in the mid-1920s.

Words and picture supplied by Peter Eedy.

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