Knockdown shack was city’s first watchhouse

THE secret cellblock past of a derelict cottage by the Broadwater has been revealed, with police discovering the forgotten shack was the Gold Coast’s first watchhouse — and one of the city’s oldest remaining original buildings from the 1880s.

Mark Rustin was stunned to receive an email from police inspector Scott Knowles, explaining the Runaway Bay knockdown he’d just bought for $453,000 was the original Southport Police Station.

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Mr Rustin, a real estate agent with Harcourts Coastal, purchased the 625 sqm block at 50 Clam Street in December, intending to replace the three-bedroom weatherboard cottage with a dream Hamptons home.

“I had no idea when we bought it that it was actually the former watchhouse,” Mr Rustin said.

“It was just a knockdown shack, but blocks of that size and in that location so close to the Broadwater don’t come up very often.”

With demolition work delayed, Mr Rustin listed the block for sale again for $579,000 less than three weeks after its settlement date, and it was under offer within days to a new buyer.

Gold Coast Central Police Patrol Insp Knowles said the building’s existence only came to light during his research late last year ahead of celebrations to mark 140 years of Southport Police in 2021.

“It was a complete surprise,” Insp Knowles said.

“A contact at the Gold Coast City Council rang and said, ‘actually, I think we’ve probably found the old station’, so I contacted the current owners to go and have a look, and 100 per cent that was it.

“Walking through it was like stepping back in history. It’s quite dilapidated now, but you can still see where the two old cells and the officer’s quarters were, and the kitchen where they cooked the prisoners’ meals.”

Insp Knowles emailed Mr Rustin seeking access to the property to retrieve a piece from the building to frame along with original station plans as memorabilia.

“There is a piece within the old cells of the building in the ceiling where the bars passed through to the floor which would be a great opportunity to connect the current station and employees with where we were 140 years ago,” Insp Knowles said.

“It’s very sentimental for Southport to be able to link the current police station back to 1880 when it was first there. It has been quite an experience after doing a lot of research into the history to walk through and have that connection,” he said.

Historical logs reveal the station’s second officer arrived in 1884 and slept in one of the cells while an extra room was built.

“Life was tough back then with the first mechanised police vehicle comprising a motorcycle and side car not arriving until 1930,” Insp Knowles said.

“The logs talk about there being only two modes of transport for patrolling the division. One was a troop horse and the other was a bike, so I dare say the constable was riding a bike and the officer-in-charge was riding the horse.”

While prisoner records haven’t been unearthed, Insp Knowles speculated the likes of “cattle rustlers” may have spent time in the station’s cells.

It is understood the old building was sold and moved from its original location at Southport to make way for the new station, which was built around 100 years ago.

Agent Liz Andrews, of Hillsea Real Estate, sold the property to Mr Rustin. She said the elderly vendor had fallen ill and never realised his vision of restoring the historical cottage to its former glory.

Ms Andrews said the two former jail cells had been converted to a kitchen and laundry, but holes remained where the cell bars had passed through the ceiling.

The building’s tongue and groove design was conceived to prevent crafty prisoners from using a spoon and fork to plot their escape, Ms Andrews said.

The vendor had held the site since 1980 when it was purchased for $32,000.

While the site is currently zoned for low-density residential development, a proposed increase on the building height limit to 12m would provide scope for the new owner to build multiple dwellings, Mr Rustin said.

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