King St’s Monarchy Moments: A Trip Down Memory Lane

In honour of the King’s coronation this month, we’re taking a trip down memory lane and looking at the Royal visits to King St.

In March of 1954, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II made history as the first ever reigning monarch to visit Brisbane. She was so popular that people came out in the thousands when she arrived at the RNA showgrounds. The precinct looked very different back then and has since been transformed into a world-class lifestyle destination. King St has become a place where creativity, imagination and innovation flourish on a daily basis, and where locals live, work, dine, shop and enjoy urban green spaces.

In October of 2014, the Princess Royal, Princess Anne visited to attend the 26th Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth. The RASC is the body that unites agricultural show societies from all over the Commonwealth in order to share ideas, knowledge and skills. Princess Anne took over as president from her father Prince Philip, who founded the society in 1957.

On your next visit, make sure to check out the custom tree grates all along King St. These are specially designed to commemorate each of these royal visits and connections as well as other important showground milestones. In fact, King St is the only street in Brisbane allowed to deviate from the normal Brisbane City Council grates.

We certainly hope that the newly appointed King Charles III will make a visit of his own to our beautiful precinct in the future.