Maryborough’s Cistern Chapel public toilet

Australian toilets refurbished into a Victorian-themed building

As reported, the city of Maryborough, located three and a half hours north of Brisbane, has debuted its newest tourist attraction: the country’s flashiest toilets.

What was once just toilets has been turned into an ornately adorned Victorian-themed precinct.

Nancy Bates, president of the Cistern Chapel Committee, claimed she had the magnificent idea after seeing those unclean toilets a few years ago.

“Maryborough is developing into a great tourist precinct and I thought, ‘This is the heart of it and it’s just not good enough'”, she said.

She snapped up a couple of photos and sent them to Daniel Sanderson, the councilor here who looks after the city area and two weeks later he replied that the building would be repainted. But she made clear she wanted the best toilets in Australia, if not the world with chandeliers, fresh flowers, and music.

Now, the makeover is now complete and ready to open to the public after more than a year.

“The thing about doing this particular project is that the character of the building was so terrific, it just lent itself”, Ms. Bates said.

“There are quite a few toilets marketed as tourist attractions, we think we have the fanciest”, she said.

“If anybody travels north of Brisbane, we will probably end up on the must-do list”, continued her.

The building is subjected to regular inspections to ensure that everything is as it should be. Garry Madden was one of the artists who contributed to the project’s completion. However, he stated that working on the roof was one of the most difficult tasks of the project.

“I couldn’t get a scissor lift in here because the doors were too narrow, so I was up a ladder painting a lot of butterflies”, he said.

“That was a bit precarious, but I really needed to do it to fulfill what was my vision as a retreat for mothers to come into”, he added.

“I hope people leave a little happier or a little bit more ‘relieved’ is the statement I would like to make”.

The initiative also included contributions from several other artists from the Maryborough community.