Fairy Knoll is a heritage-listed villa at 2A Robertson Road, Eastern Heights, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by George Brockwell Gill and built from to 1952 by Worley & Whitehead. It was also known as Jefferis Turner Centre. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
The grand two storey brick residence, Fairy Knoll, was completed in 1901 by contractors Worley and Whitehead to the 1896 design of architect George Brockwell Gill. The residence was built for Thomas Hancock (Junior), a successful timber merchant, his wife Louisa Hayne and their ten children.
Thomas Hancock came to Ipswich in 1863 with his parents and brothers and sister. His father Thomas Hancock (Senior) commenced sawing timber at Pine Mountain and later acquired a sawmill in Rosewood. In 1875, he acquired the lease over the North Ipswich timber mill and in October 1880 Thomas Hancock & Sons opened a new mill in Lowry Street, North Ipswich. By 1885 Thomas Hancock & Sons was a successful expanding company employing 138 hands in Ipswich as well as many in their Brisbane offices totalling 274 people. The Ipswich complex included a mill, joinery and moulding plant and a lathe department which produced doors, window sashes and panelling.
Thomas Hancock Senior died in 1891 and the company passed into the hands of his sons Josias and Thomas Junior. Thomas Hancock Junior had married his second wife Louisa Hayne in 1878 and by 1885 they had two sons Thomas and Norman and a daughter Eva and were expecting another daughter, Florence. Thomas Hancock subsequently bought four acres on the crest of the hill above Chermside Road (then Boundary Road) from Ambrose John Foote with the intention of building a family home.
The first house Hancock built on the site was a simple timber home. By 1897 Thomas and Louisa Hancock had five boys and five girls and Thomas dreamed of erecting a two storey brick mansion to replace the wooden house. In 1896 he transferred the title to his wife Louisa and the following year is believed to have commissioned architect George Brockwell Gill to design the new home. Thomas Hancock did not live to see Fairy Knoll completed as he died in 1897. The house was constructed at a cost of and in 1901 Louisa Hancock and her ten children moved into their new home and Louisa continued to live there until 1947.
The architect, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include Brynhyfryd for Lewis Thomas (1889–90), St Paul's Rectory (1895), the Ipswich Club House (1916), the Ipswich Technical College (1901), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914–16 and President in 1918–19. Gill was also a member of the Board of Trustees for Ipswich Girls' Grammar School and on his retirement in 1948 he was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The newly finished house was described in The Queensland Times in March 1901 which mentioned such features as the wide front entrance hall with a solid cedar entrance door and side stained glass windows. An arched opening at the end of the hall led to a walnut staircase in the centre of the building. The staircase was three flights from floor to floor. It was lit by well-distributed light from the lantern in the apex of the roof. The water was supplied by two large, built in brick cisterns, immediately under the roof and lined with iron, which had a capacity of . The water supply was drawn by gravity.