History
The Community Hall was originally built on a block of land in John Street, behind what is now Bluebell Cottage and was privately owned by Mr J. Quinn. The hall played a significant role in the community and many town meetings were held here. It was moved to its current location in George Street after it changed ownership in 1947.
A committee of local volunteers runs the hall. When the hall was moved, it needed extensive repairs, and it was decided to add a supper room to the building.
Local builder, Mr Percy Hawthorn, was engaged to build the extension, assisted by local man, Mr Alf Williams, and by committee members and their families. Money was raised by local cattle owners Messrs Webb, Carseldine and Lord, each donating between 25-30 beasts to be sold at Cannon Hill saleyards, with all funds going to the hall refurbishment.
Mr Webb further donated blue gum logs for the hardwood boards for the walls, and The Mill donated costs and workers time to cut the timber. Efforts made by these generous local families are still greatly appreciated by Linville community.
While you are at the Community Hall make sure you wander around the community garden and check out the various artworks.
Early photo of the Community Hall compared to 2014
Hire
The Linville Hall is available for community hire at no cost or private and commercial hire for a fee. Residents of Linville and surrounds or local community groups can apply for a 50% discount for private hire. All hire requests are to be assessed by the Linville Management Committee before approval is given.
Click here to view the Linville Hall Hire Policy which defines the types of hire and conditions. The application form to hire the hall can be accessed here.
Catering
If your hire requires catering, preference is that catering is provided by one of the businesses in the village. Self-catering can take place in the Hall’s commercial kitchen and this needs to be discussed with the Linville Management Committee prior to the event taking place. The kitchen must be left in a clean state and at the standard in which it was found originally. Hire rates include all electricity, gas and water charges – these are not additional.
How to hire the hall
1. Check availability for your chosen dates / times by contacting hello@linvilleprogress.com.au.
2. To hold a reservation date, complete and return the Hall Hire Application Form, a deposit and bond may be required depending on the hire type and activities.
3. Linville Progress Management Committee will assess your application and respond with the hire amount owed as per the fee schedule.
4. The Hirer to confirm acceptance of the rates and agreement and remit all hire fees to Linville Progress Association’s nominated bank account.
5. Retain your own copy of the signed Hall Hire Application Agreement form.
6. All fees must be paid in full at least two weeks prior to the hire.
7. Access to the Hall will be discussed prior to the hire date.
Community Garden
The community gardens are there for all to enjoy. While you are there feel free to wander the gardens admire the artworks and sample any produce.
Garden artworks
Reflections of Resilience – Blue Triangle Butterfly Water Bowl
Artist: Rosie O’Brien
Materials: Glass, Tile and Sandstone
About the Artwork
The main bowl uses a mixture of glass including stained, vitreous and other glass, with the autumn leaf highlighting the changes that can occur. The water in the bowl causes light to dance around and reflections to change and waver.
The grout between the tiles is purposely rough, giving small insects a place to grip the sides. Whilst the butterfly in the bowl uses a traditional style of mosaics, the ones on the base use two differing styles, including stained glass wings on two of them – that shows just how the butterfly looks. It’s designed to cause us to pause to wonder how the same thing can be seen from different perspectives. Originally the bowl was to have three or four butterflies on the outside, however when the local community found a beautiful sandstone plinth, Rosie was able to place larger butterflies on its base. All together the piece will hopefully provide a reflection of the resilience of the people of Linville.
Rosie said “my vision was to create a bowl to complement the other artworks and amenities in the garden. To attract birds and insects to the garden as they search for water. In addition, it’s a place to reflect, as the water impacts on our resilience, our ability to cope and the beauty of nature”.
About the Artist
Rosie O’Brien is a mosaic artist based in Esk, known for her wildlife and functional mosaics. She uses all mediums to reflect her love of wildlife and nature. Over recent years she turned her hobby to a passion. She now has commissioned works sent across the country in homes and businesses, taking a little bit of Esk to their new homes.
Rosie said that “when asked to consider a bird bath installation to complement her Resilience Totems created the year before, I asked some locals in the gardens, what made them smile and their response was a little blue native butterfly that is sometimes seen. But no one, knew its name.”
Research led Rosie to the Blue Triangle Butterfly, a species of the swallowtail, that lives on Eastern Australia, from Torres Strait and Cape York in Queensland to about 160km south of Sydney, and the locals agreed. It’s rare but it had been spotted.
Her aim is to help the wildlife and, with this installation, perhaps have people gather around and have discussions in a peaceful place.
The creation of this artwork was made possible as a result of a grant from the Bushfire Recovery Fund. Administered by Somerset Regional Council.
Resilience Totems – The Eternal Tree
Artist: Rosie O’Brien
Materials: Glass Mosaic, Iron and Wood
About the Artwork
Rosie said that “when asked to consider an installation to reflect on resilience, I immediately thought of what Linville, like many country towns had been through over the years.”
As a regular visitor to Linville, Rosie knew its timber town heritage, and that the last few years have really required people to draw on their resilience with fire and then floods. Yet it is also a town that has grown and become a destination. A place to be proud of. A community working together.
Rosie said, “My vision was to create an installation that people can sit or stand before. They can reflect on the colours of our recent history and look forward to the beauty of the regrowth and connections that this brings us.” She proposed three totems/sculptures, each topped with circular glass, framed with steel as a homage to the bullock days and bolted onto locally sourced and installed hardwood posts.
The glass section of each totem will be mosaicked in a swirl of colours, using a variety of glass including stained, fused, gems etc, relating to either the major events, or looking forward and growing. Within each mosaic is the element of a tree. The tree representing Linville as a whole, its history and the people who call Linville home.
Rosie has carried the tree through all the totems, sometime obscured by events, burnt at its tips, but there. Like the people of Linville, the tree is front and centre in the largest totem, symbolising people and communities working hard to revitalise, renew and bounce back through regrowth and sheer resilience. Rosie wanted all the totems to be colourful and reflective. The beauty of fire and water, swirling, bubbling, layered yet recognising the impact it has on all of us, through the tree. Regrowth, however, is focused on colour and unfurling growth, it’s a new beginning, full of hope.
To achieve the different feel of the pieces, Rosie worked on each individually, selecting glass from her personal stock or sourcing it as locally as possible. With Fire, Rosie chose to filigree the tips of the trees to allow the grout to silhouette the branches. With Water, she has focused on the bubbles within bubbles of water as it flows. Regrowth is an explosion of colour and light.
Now, a long way from the original drawing, Rosie hopes you enjoy her work and can reflect on your own journey, whatever it may be.
About the Artist
Rosie O’Brien is a mosaic artist based in Esk, known for her wildlife and functional mosaics. She uses all mediums to reflect her love of wildlife and nature. Over the last two years, she has turned her hobby to a passion and now has commissioned works sent across the country in homes and businesses, taking a little bit of Esk to their new homes.
The creation of this magnificent piece was made possible as a result of a grant from the Bushfire Recovery Fund. Administered by Somerset Regional Council.
‘The Linville Stag’
Artist: Luke Sheehan
Material: Wood
‘People Growing’ Entryway Sculpture
Artists: Merton Chambers and Kim Duff
Material: Steel
A Blacksmith’s Statement: Creating a magnificent sculptural entrance to Linville’s Community Garden.
About the Artwork
The concept for the creation of this significant artwork as an entry statement to the Linville Community Garden in 2020 furthered the objective of “creating a sense of place in our towns and villages which respect and highlight their heritage and character.”
We chose to work with an artist/sculptor, Merton Chambers, and blacksmith artist, Kim Duff, to create a work that reflected Linville’s close connection with the railway as its establishment back in 1910 opened up this village, and many others like it, throughout the area. The machinery used to operate an early 1900s railway was wrought or cast iron, these together with the steel of the railway tracks are the media used to create the sculptural entry to the Community Garden.
Artist/Sculptor Merton Chambers and Blacksmith Artist Kim Duff collaborated on the design which is a U-shaped form reminiscent of farm gate entries and which features men and women at work with hand tools as if in a garden. They show in silhouette form.
About the Artists
Merton Chambers – Artist, Sculptor and Creative Director for this project
Born in rural Ontario, Canada, during the great 20th century depression, Merton Chambers’ unique talent for art was soon recognised. After graduating from Art College, he won a traveling scholarship to the UK and Europe where he honed his skills to develop the unique style for which he would become famous. On his return to Canada, Merton established a successful pottery studio in Toronto and became a significant influence in the arts and crafts movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He was later actively involved in the 20th century rebirth of the Architectural Arts movement and a number of his large-scale works are to be seen in public and private buildings in Canada.
In the early 1980s, Merton moved to Australia with his wife, artist Anita Aarons, settling in Noosa Heads where he became founding director of the Noosa Regional Art Gallery. He has also an established international reputation in painting and drawing.
In 2000, Merton moved to the Brisbane Valley to start a new life in the country. He continued to paint and draw using mainly oil pastels. His work ventured towards the surreal and sometimes satirical, now it is focused on crayon and colour.
Since 2013, Merton has held a number of successful public and private exhibitions throughout southeast Queensland.
Now after seven decades of being an active artist, many of his works are held in public and private collections around the world.
In talking about the collaboration for this project Merton said, ‘After I visited the site for the garden, I knew the piece had to have presence. The idea of showing all elements of men and women planting and tending fruit, vegetables and flowers led me to suggesting the figures that sit on top of the entry way. They can be seen across the road on entry and from the back of the garden to the front’.
On working with Kim, Merton said, ‘it gave me such pleasure watching Kim grow in confidence as he interpreted my sketches. What a wonderful collaboration’.
Kim Duff – Blacksmith and Artist
After Kim finished his Boilermaker apprenticeship with his father’s engineering firm Duff’s Engineering, he decided he wanted to create more interesting work.
Having been inspired by artists such as Steven Weis and the traditional methods of Blacksmithing (which was taught to him by his grandfather) he made the decision to form iconic art 25 years ago so that he could concentrate on producing unique pieces of artwork.
His very first commission was to create a three meter long Russian Sturgeon for a Caviar shop in Brisbane which is still on show in Baxter Street. In 1995, Warner Bros Movie World Gold Coast asked him to design and fabricate movie props for a production of The Chronicle of Narnia – The Dawn Trader. Over the years more sculptural commissions were received, including the Past History, Future Hope sculpture for the Bunya Mountains National Park, The Cobb & Co Tourist Signs for the Lockyer Valley as well as private commissions.
Due to popularity of his artistic approach to blacksmithing and working with steel art works, Kim has grown as an artist. While he has created pieces for building, landscaping and commercial industries, he now creates sculptures for tourism destinations and public places.
‘I love the look on my clients’ faces when I have finished forging their artwork. It is a great feeling to know that I have made their pieces with my own hands from start to finish and that it will last for future generations to appreciate’.
When asked about creating the Community Garden entrance for Linville in collaboration with well-known artist Merton Chambers Kim said, ‘This project took me to a new place. The figures that sit atop the entryway are based on Merton’s vision for the piece and his loose sketches. I re-imagined them then hand forged each one by hand and found immense satisfaction in creating the minute detail out of a medium such as steel. I’ve never done anything like this’.
This project was made possible through a Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) Grant.
The Regional Arts Development Fund is a Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and Somerset Regional Council partnership to support local arts and culture.