Ascot (4007)
On the Northside, just 8 km from Brisbane central, Ascot (4007) is an older, established suburb, noted for its traditional homes, Poinciana tree-lined streets, it’s high street shopping villages, upmarket boutiques and restaurants and its racecourses. Whereas Ascot was once dominated by large private homes, it is slowly being redeveloped to include moderate density apartments and townhouse complexes.
In the 1830s, convicts cleared the land which was then settled by the wealthy for its river views. In 1855 James Sutherland, a pastoralist bought a large portion of Ascot and built one of the suburb’s iconic homes, Windermere. Because of its racecourses, stables and training grounds predominated until the 1920s and the popularity of the sport was the reason a tram service was extended into Ascot in 1899 until 1969.
In World War II several buildings were used by General MacArthur until he relocated his headquarters to Brisbane city. However, the work of decoding Japanese intelligence continued in Ascot. In 1941, the racecourse was resumed as military barracks for American troops. Ascot has many heritage listed sites together with several schools. Since the 1990s until his death, the late Australian actor, Bille Brown resided in the servants’ quarters of one such historic home, “Nyrambla”.
In 2011, 5700 people lived in Ascot, their average age is 37 years. Most are Anglo-Australian with a minority from India, such that Italian is spoken by a few as a second language to English at home.
