Warwick's First Homes
As business houses commenced to be established in Warwick, people of the adjoining stations commenced to buy land in the town and build homes for their families. Any resemblance between those homes and today's in only coincident, back in the 1850's the homes were of round placed three feet in the ground, split timber slads for the walls standing upright, rounded sapling for the rafters, with stringy bark for the roof, while ant beds compacted made a first class floor. A round hollow log split in two was the spout between the chimney and used as a gable at the ends of the building.
The fire place in the cabin were usually eight feet long by five feet deep and six foot high, the cabin was lined with zinc taken out of old cases. After sundown these humble dwelling were principally lit up by the fire in the huge fireplaces, or by the aid of what was called back then as a "fat lamp".
This then, was the beginning of a town, as more and more station people looked to the town as their supply centre.
In the early years to come, Warwick was to experience many fluctuations of fortune. Built largely around a business community centre in Albion and Victoria Street, the disastrous floods of 1887 and then again in 1893 forced the locals to higher grounds of Palmerin Street.