Windsor, an inner suburb of Brisbane, is five km north-east of the city centre.

The first land sales in the Windsor area were in 1855, with further installments until the end of the decade. The Enoggera/Breakfast Creek separated the area from Brisbane, crossed only at the Breakfast Creek bridge near Albion. The Bowen bridge, upstream (1860) and Lutwyche Road (1862) improved access to the district. The Bowen Bridge Road National School was opened in 1865. Subdivisions into smaller blocks in Windsor followed in the 1870s.

The Windsor area - not yet known by that name - was at first locally governed by the Ithaca divisional board (1880) which was responsible for an area extending westwards from the Sandgate Road (Nundah) to the foothills of the D'Aguilar Range (The Gap, Toowong). In 1887 the Windsor district was severed from Ithaca, becoming Windsor Shire, probably named after Windsor Castle in the golden jubilee year of Queen Victoria's reign. The Shire, comprising 10.5 sq km, was bounded generally by Enoggera Road, Enoggera/Breakfast Creek, Sandgate Road, Bonney Road and its prolongation back to Kedron Brook. The Shire contained Albion (part), Eagle Junction (part), Wooloowin, Kalinga, Kedron High School's site, Lutwyche, Grange, Alderley (part), Newmarket, Wilston and Windsor.

Substantial deposits of clay and quarry products were available in the Shire, which were an aid to road making. One of the Council's original committees was concerned only with the shire quarry. During 1894-96 reticulated water from the Enoggera Reservoir was extended to Newmarket and Albion. Despite having a shire population of over 5000 (1891), the absence of public transport was keenly felt. Windsor Shire and Enoggera Division jointly put up a financial guarantee for a railway line through Windsor and servicing the Newmarket saleyards. The line opened in 1899, and the shire was proclaimed a town in 1904. Evidence of the shire and town titles can be seen on the front of the heritage-listed municipal offices (1897) at the intersection of Lutwyche and Albion Roads. A short distance north, there is the Windsor school of arts (1911).

It took the Lutwyche Road tramline (1914) to get wider urban growth going. New schools were opened, Wooloowin (1914), Windsor (1916) and Wilston (1920). The town council estimated that it approved an average of 200 houses a year after 1918, aided by several major drainage schemes through Albion, Wooloowin and the west of the municipality. The municipality's population more than doubled during 1911-21.

Windsor town's urbanisation was rewarded with incorporation into the Greater Brisbane Council in 1925. Its imaginative mayor, William Jolly was Greater Brisbane's first mayor.

Windsor has parklands on its southern border next to Enoggera Creek, and its more central heritage-listed Memorial Park (1925) with a war memorial. The growth of population required a service reservoir in 1930 at Eildon Hill, around which a third larger reserve was laid out. Eildon Hill gives views over Brisbane, as far as the Glass House Mountains and Victoria Point on a clear day. It was the site of one of the early genteel estates where George Wight built Eildon House in 1863.

Eildon Hill and other elevated positions have several heritage-listed houses. Boothville (1887), 43 Seventh Avenue, is a two-storey building erected for a prosperous bank manager and has retained much of its original cartilage. Kirkston (1889) at 23 Rupert Street and Oakwal (1864) at 50 Bush Street also have hilly positions. Local bricks went into many of the houses, and there is a pair of brick-makers' cottages at 25-27 Bess Street.

Windsor has local shops in Lutwyche Road, State and Catholic (1929) primary schools, Anglican, Catholic and Uniting churches and a bowling club in the Memorial Park. In Newmarket Road Bretts sawmill (1913) and hardware business was redeveloped as Homezone Windsor, with Bretts homewares and other tenants (2002).

FLOODS 2011

In January 2011 the Enoggera Creek, west of Bowen Bridge, flooded a low-lying residential area.

Census populations have been:

 Census DatePopulation
Windsor suburb19766363
 19866002
 20015887
 20066164
 20116389
Windsor Shire18915152
 19118970
 192118,250

The median weekly income per person in 2011 was $805, $100 more than the median for metropolitan Brisbane. The median age was 33, a year less than metropolitan Brisbane's.

Heritage Trail - Windsor, Brisbane City Council booklet, 1991

David Teague, Windsor Council Chambers 1897-1997, Windsor, Windsor and Districts Historical Society, 1997

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