A Toombul swimming hole known as The Muscle was remembered as a place few people swam, according to a former Clayfield resident who described the old pools along Kedron Brook.
Frank Charlton (1898–1982) recorded his recollections of the district in Clayfield as I have seen it. In an extract shared by the Nundah & Districts Historical Society, he placed The Muscle near a bridge close to the later Toombul Shoppingtown and said it had a reputation for danger. Charlton did not identify the reason and acknowledged that he had never swum there.
The society’s extract also describes a separate swimming hole known as The Isleton at what is now Kalinga Park. Charlton remembered it as a place where boys learnt to swim, a contrast with his account of The Muscle. Neither recollection establishes the precise position of the pools on a present-day map.
How The Toombul Swimming Hole Was Remembered
John Miller, responding to the Historical Society’s post, recalled knowing The Muscle as the ‘4 foot’. He also described falling into the water and being helped out. His recollection offers another name for the pool but does not independently establish its depth or explain its reputation.
Other records document swimming-related facilities along Kedron Brook farther upstream. An account published in The Brisbane Courier on 23 October 1909, reproduced by the Windsor & Districts Historical Society, reported that a bathing shed had been erected at Kalinga Park. The newspaper described the creek there as suitable for conversion into a swimming pool; it did not mention The Muscle.
BCC’s Nundah Heritage Trail reproduces a State Library of Queensland photograph captioned Tree-lined banks of Kedron Brook, Toombul, dated to about 1910. The image provides a view of the waterway in that period, although it does not identify either the pool or the bridge in Charlton’s account.
A Changing Stretch of Kedron Brook
The bridge’s identity remains unresolved. A BCC heritage record covering the Sandgate railway mentions a timber-pier crossing of Kedron Brook at Toombul during the railway’s construction, but it does not connect that crossing with The Muscle. No verified historical map has placed the swimming hole on the later shopping-centre site.
Toombul Shopping Centre opened in 1967 at 1015 Sandgate Road, Nundah. Flood damage in February 2022 led to its closure, and the centre was later demolished. BCC now includes the site among the stops on its Nundah Heritage Trail.
A redevelopment application lodged on 6 October 2026 proposes a mixed-use precinct, including retail facilities, public open space and measures intended to manage flooding. BCC’s development register lists the application as in progress, with no final decision recorded at the time of checking.
The location and fate of the Toombul swimming hole remain undocumented in the records examined. Charlton’s account gives a name, an approximate setting and an unexplained reputation, but not the particular crossing where The Muscle once lay.
Published 28-October-2026
