BayView/Scarborough Hotel history

fuji321
Jan 9
2 min read

The Scarborough Hotel was originally called the Bay View Hotel with Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (later premier of Queensland) as one of the original shareholders.

Built in 1878 with 150 feet (45.67m) of verandahs at the front and sides, the hotel was one of the first structures to be built on the Peninsula. The building sat on a gentle grassy slope facing Moreton Island at the narrow northerly end of the Peninsula.

This was 3 years ahead of the land boom of the 1880s and it was a brave decision to build on such an isolated and fairly inaccessible site without the attraction of a jetty to support its viability. Bay View Hotel was built 3 years before the jetty at Woody Point (1881) and seven years before the first Redcliffe Jetty was built in 1885.

An early photo taken in 1876 shows a small jetty built at the mouth of Murphys Creek (where the cotton tree Pirate Park is now) and this was more than likely used to load the transported material used for the construction of the Hotel. A painting by George Seymour Owen in 1889 shows the same, now dis-used Jetty.

Photos from our Pictorial History of Redcliffe Book 1824-1949 - available to purchase at the following link: https://www.redcliffebook.com/product-page/the-pictorial-history-of-redcliffe

Video of the first 1876 photo at:

It was enlarged by licensee William Walsh in 1884 after 6 years of trading. A dining room 90 feet long of magnificent dimensions was added; also a smaller dining room and several other rooms. It is recorded that William had a wagonette waiting to meet customers arriving at Redcliffe Jetty on the Emerald in 1900. The distance to be travelled was 3.3km over a dusty track.

The Bay View Hotel was rebuilt in 1926 and the name changed to the Scarborough Hotel.

Renovations began in the 1930s by Mr Fortune and his son Jim. Local resident Alma Shaw recalls that the Hotel became her home from 1930 to 1941 when her parents and other relatives ran it. The family had horses, cows, ducks, fowls and geese on the property and the beer was delivered by Alex Brazier in his truck. Freshly cooked crabs in baskets covered with a starched white cloth were sold outside the hotel by Viv Ridgway. Viv's son David said crabs sold for 4 to 6 for a shilling. Fresh fish was brought to the Hotel by Sam and Keith Buckley.