Graceville

Graceville, a residential suburb with eastern and western frontages to the Brisbane River, is a few kilometres south of Indooroopilly and 7.5 km south-east of central Brisbane. It is on the Brisbane to Ipswich railway line (1876) and was named after the daughter of Samuel Grimes, the local member for Oxley (1878-1902) when he was asked for a name for the railway station.

Graceville was a semi-rural, middle class settlement in the Sherwood shire. Houses were expansive Queenslanders, a good example being Verney (1888) in Bell Terrace, built for Charles Buzacott, managing director of the Observer and Courier Mail. The shire council laid on reticulated water in 1902 and in 1904 purchased the site for Graceville Park. After World War I a memorial was erected and the site became Graceville Memorial Park. The park's grandstand (1936) and war memorial (1920) are listed on the Queensland heritage register.

The main thoroughfare is Honour Avenue, running through Graceville from Chelmer to Sherwood. A shopping centre developed there, near the railway station. Most houses were built in the interwar years, some with allotments large enough to accommodate a recorded 37 tennis courts in Graceville in the 1930s. The Graceville Park Estate (1919) marketed allotments as being of farmlet size, the fortunate owners raising their own poultry and vegetables. A State primary school was opened in 1928 and a Catholic school in 1937, next to the church and Presentation convent.

By the end of World War II only the eastern part, overlooking Indooroopilly Reach and south-east from the railway station, was underdeveloped. There were Catholic and Methodist churches, croquet and bowling clubs (1919) and the Graceville cinema in Honour Avenue, and a second group of shops in Oxley Road. North of the shops the Methodists built their first church (1919), followed by a heritage-listed interwar Gothic building (1930) of surprising proportions. The Sherwood agricultural, pastoral and industrial society held its first annual show in Graceville in 1921.

Graceville's location and housing stock have become desirable real estate. Some Queenslanders have been removed to permit multi-unit development, but more have been renovated. The local shopping centre has a cafe culture and the Regal Twin Cinema.

FLOODS 2011

The east side of Graceville was badly flooded by the Brisbane River and Oxley Creek in January 2011. Water covered Faulkner Park and several houses to the south, and inland halfway along Graceville Avenue.

Graceville's census populations have been: