Site 34

Old Petrie Town (formerly known as the North Pine Country Park) and the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum

Dayboro Road, Whiteside

In May 1978 Lawrence Smith, a landscape architect who had established a local business known as Landplan Studio, was requested by the Pine Rivers Shire Council to submit preliminary ideas on the development of the former Hyde family’s property on Dayboro Road (west of Petrie). This property was originally selected by James Foreman in 1868. The request included a direction that a reserve for historic buildings should be created in an area surrounding the historic Hyde homestead. This initiative eventually led to the creation of the North Pine Country Park. A public meeting was held on 2 December 1981 to discuss the development of what was then referred to as the ‘Hyde Historical Village’. A Pine Rivers Shire Council meeting on 9 February of the following year approved the name ‘North Pine Country Park’ for the project and the first meeting of the Park’s Management Committee was held on 21 April 1982. The popular Closeburn Country Markets, which had first opened in 1979, were eventually relocated to the North Pine Country Park; a grand opening was held on 7 June 1987. In 2005 the name of the park complex, which was by then leased and managed by the YMCA, was changed to ‘Old Petrie Town’.

A significant development within the North Pine Country Park was the opening of the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum on Australia Day, 26 January 2000. This farsighted concept was the brainchild of Pine Rivers Shire Councillor and Deputy Mayor, Bryan Galvin, who believed that the heritage museum should be regarded as “a gift from the residents of the old millennium to those of the new”. The museum encourages visitors to explore the district’s historic character through permanent displays, multimedia presentations and constantly changing temporary exhibitions. The museum complex includes Yebri House, the historic cottage moved from the Petrie family’s Murrumba Homestead precinct in 2006. It is a Campbell pre-fabricated kit house built in the mid 1890s which has been fully restored and furnished to represent the 1920s era.