Sunday, April 24, 2016

Lurking around

I have my doubts I should have been there, but the creaky old stairway that looked not very safe was no longer blocked off (probably due to some work being done on the weekday, by the looks), and there was no one around.   So I had a look in this roof space area that I'm not sure has ever been open to the public.  (Maybe it was when it used to be used for something else.   And I do have childhood memories of its former use.  But now that I think of it, the handrail you can see in one photo looks fancy enough that it used to be for public access.   And why put a nice big stained glass window in if it couldn't be seen by the public?  So yes, I think it probably was formerly open, but hasn't been for a long time.)

The very observant reader of this blog may know which Brisbane building I refer to.







2 comments:

IanS said...

Old Museum? As for the window, I think the mezzanine was an (early) addition. As I recall (childhood memories, which may be wrong), the mezzanine was used for museum displays, and it was accessed by a very dodgy staircase.

Steve said...

Yes, correct.

I do remember the Museum used to cram an awful lot in, and you could spend a long time there, so the ground floor area probably wasn't enough.

And yes, I don't think any substantial work has been done on the dodgy staircases since we were kids!

Oddly enough, though, just behind the position of the last photo, there is a raised level that leads to a balcony above the east-ish facing side entry. It is clear that refurbishment work has been done on that balcony - to the floor, but there is also a rather new looking steel wire safety rail that would stop people leaning on the old the brickwork rail, and a small warning sign too. It really looks like an expectation that the balcony could be used by the public again, but they've nothing to the stairs to get up there, and the space other than the balcony has no attractions. (I really don't know what the tent things are about.)

All very curious...