Corinda

Corinda, an interwar residential suburb, is 9 km south-west of central Brisbane. It was possibly named after a local property owned by Sir Arthur Palmer, which he named after his Corinda pastoral station near Aramac.

Corinda has the Brisbane River as its western boundary and the Oxley Creek on its east. The landscape rises sharply from the river and only a narrow margin of land was flooded in 1893 and 1974. The suburb is slightly more flood prone on the east, mainly near the high school. With hilly ground on the west, it is that part which is generally more favoured in the real estate market.

An early farming family chose the elevated spot now known as Francis Lookout as a cemetery (c1863). The lookout, at the corner of Dewar Terrace and Hilda Street, is listed on the Queensland heritage register. Twelve years later the Brisbane to Ipswich railway line was built through Corinda, and nine years after then a branch line was opened from Corinda to the South Brisbane wharves (Stanley Street). The new line was needed to transport Ipswich coal to the wharves, and Corinda was known as South Brisbane Junction until 1888.

During the 1890s Corinda's social infrastructure took shape with cricket and tennis clubs (1892, 1893) and a school of arts (1895). The Sherwood divisional board met in Corinda. Schools came somewhat later: primary education had been provided in neighbouring Oxley and Sherwood since the 1870s, and it was the Catholic Church which opened the first school in Corinda at Our Lady of Sacred Heart convent in 1917. It is now St Joseph's primary school. The Anglican Church followed with St Aiden's girls' school (1-12) in 1929. State schools were opened in 1927 (Corinda primary) and 1960 (high school). The high school's enrolment peaked at 1590 in 1964.

Most of Corinda was subdivided for housing with recreation areas provided at Dunlop Park on Oxley Road and Nosworthy Park on Oxley Creek. The latter is below flood level, and includes the Corinda bowls club.

A shopping area developed in Oxley Road near the railway station, along with the Corinda Hall and a new Catholic church a short distance north. Housing is a mixture of Queenslanders and early postwar dwellings. The shopping area has maintained its viability with a Coles supermarket and no nearby drive-in to erode its retail catchment. In 2001-02 Corinda recorded the second highest rise for metropolitan house prices, slightly behind Manly. The best locations are west of the railway line with views to Mount Coot-tha.

Floods 2011

Positioned between Brisbane River and the Oxley Creek, Corinda is more troubled by the creek in flood times. In January 2011 water from Oxley Creek reached as far as a few houses next to the parklands.

In 2013 the former site of Queensland's Society for Crippled Children (Montrose Access), a 3.7 hectare parcel of riverfront land at Corinda, was rezoned for 34 individual residential allotments.

Corinda's census populations have been: