Ferny Grove

Ferny Grove, an outer residential suburb, is 12 km north-west of central Brisbane. It is immediately south of Kedron Brook, the boundary between Brisbane City Council and Moreton Bay Regional Council (formerly Pine Rivers Shire boundary).

Ferny Grove is situated in a hilly district which includes the Brisbane State Forest (Samford and Enoggera Reservoir), and adjoins upper Kedron which encloses several tributary streams of Kedron Brook. It was settled by small farmers, fruit growers and dairy farmers, and the name aptly reflects the kind of land which was cleared for farming. A local primary school was opened in 1875.

Ferny Grove was separated from Brisbane by the Enoggera Military Camp and not until 1885 was a railway considered. The idea was token, as the hilly country was costly in which to build a railway, and the villages of Samford and Dayboro offered only limited volumes of freight and passengers. A line from Enoggera to Samford via Ferny Grove was finally opened in 1919. Ferny Grove's population was less than 100. The Post Office Directory for 1936 recorded two storekeepers in Ferny Grove, along with numerous farmers and fruit growers and the Wunderlich Tile factory (1928) next to the railway.

As the population edged toward 300 in the postwar yeas there were also a sawmill, two carpenters and several small dairy farmers. The Wunderlich tile factory was enlarged in about 1946 for the postwar housing boom. Taken over by CSR, it was closed in 1963 after a factory had opened at Northgate. The low passenger and freight volumes from the Samford district saw the line closed beyond Ferny Grove, which became a metropolitan terminus in 1955. It was also one of the first lines to be electrified (1979).

Suburbanisation indisputably arrived with a Wilmore and Randell land development on the other side of Kedron Brook (1959) in Pine Rivers Shire. At first known as Ferny Grove, the north-side estate was named Ferny Hills in 1972. It was substantially developed by then, whereas Ferny Grove's south-side urbanisation occurred in the late 1970s and continued until the mid-1990s.

Ferny Grove has a high school (1980), a Catholic primary school (1985), the Ferny Grove shopping centre opposite the primary school and the Ferny Grove Tavern in Samford Road, a bowling club and the Brisbane Tramway Museum (1972) in Upper Kedron Park, south-west of the railway station.

A fierce storm hit a number of Brisbane suburbs in November 2008 causing widespread damage to houses and flash flooding in Ferny Grove, The Gap, Keperra and Arana Hills.

Ferny Grove's census populations have been: