Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post is a timber post 2.7 metres high and roughly square in section and is shaped into a pyramid at the top. It is carved with 'J. CAMERON GS' running upwards on one face and 'LAT 29 ' on another.
","history":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey post was erected in about 1882 on the bank of the Barwon River and marks the official survey of the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
The need for an official survey of the border had been recognised for many years but the work was not begun until mid 1879, when officers from both colonies met at the town of Barringun in New South Wales which was close to the border (Latitude 29°S). The surveyors were JB Cameron and J Conder, Trigonometrical Surveyors, from New South Wales and GC Watson, Surveying Commissioner of Crown Lands, Warrego District, from Queensland.
John Brewer Cameron was born in Scotland and immigrated to Victoria with his family in 1853. Noted for being athletic and adventurous, he travelled first to the Victorian goldfields and then to New Zealand. Returning to Victoria, he joined a government geodetic surveying party working in the area near Mount Baw Baw. This experience decided him to take up a career in surveying. Following his training, he went to Fiji as a surveyor in 1869, then returned in 1872 to Victoria where he specialised in surveying and geodesy. By 1879 he was a First Class surveyor in the Trigonometrical branch of the NSW Lands Department and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of New South Wales. In this year he undertook his most notable commission, to survey the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
The survey work began at Zero obelisk at Barringun, the division of work between the surveyors being described by Cameron in a letter to his uncle, Ewen Cameron:
Mr Watson is responsible for chainage while I am for the astronomical portion in finding true meridian, giving true bearing, setting off the chords, and finding latitude at every convenient site.
After observations at Barringun to determine the latitude, the team began surveying the border in a westerly direction to the intersection with the border with South Australia at Longitude 141° E, known as Cameron's Corner. This was a distance of 235 miles over difficult country. Watson and Cameron did not get on and they had to contend first with flooding in both the Warrego and Paroo systems and then drought. Health problems and shortages of both food and water added to their problems. Watson withdrew at the one hundred mile post, but Cameron was determined to carry on. This section of the survey took 12 months and 15 days to complete and details of it were given in the first Annual Report of the NSW Department of Lands 1880 Appendix 1.
In 1881 Cameron returned to Barringun to survey the easterly section to the Barwon River. This 200 mile survey was easier with good water and grass available throughout. When the survey was complete Cameron commemorated the event by placing a wooden post weighing one ton and carved with his name on the river bank. It became known as Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post. Although this was not the first border survey, it was the official survey.
In 1883 Cameron moved to New Guinea where he carried out important surveys under the direction of Sir William MacGregor. He died in 1897 in Brisbane during a return trip to New Guinea and is buried in the Toowong Cemetery.
","criteria":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post marks the first official survey of the border between what were then the separate colonies of New South Wales and Queensland when an accurate definition of the border was important for legal and economic reasons. It illustrates a remarkable feat of surveying in the nineteenth century and is a reminder of the extraordinarily difficult conditions under which many early surveyors worked.
|Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post is rare as one of the largest timber survey posts in Australia and marks the termination of the survey by John Cameron, at Latitude 29°.
|As a commemoration of one of his most notable accomplishments, the survey post has an important association with the life and work of John Brewer Cameron, whose work contributed to the development of Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14790,"place_ref":600015,"name":"The Anchorage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wagoo Road","suburb":"ST GEORGE","lga":"BALONNE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Anchorage property is situated on Wagoo Road in the Balonne Shire of south-western Queensland. The residence's front façade looks across the road to the Balonne River, as it winds its way north-east out of the town of St George. St George is approximately 116km south of Surat, which is 80km south of Roma.
The Anchorage is a two-storey timber house raised off the ground by low stumps. Its core is L-shaped and has a hipped roof. On the ground floor a kitchen in the western corner fills the 'L' to make a square, and is separated from the main part of the house by a breezeway. It is roofed separately with a simple hip. Generous verandahs surround the main part of the house and are also roofed separately. They connect to each end of the breezeway. All roofs are clad in corrugated galvanised iron. On the upper level the verandah edges are made with cast iron balusters and baluster panels, and tapering stop-chamfered timber posts. Below, fitted between each post, are deep, arched valances made of lattice. These have cast iron fringes and brackets.
The exterior walls to the main house and the kitchen are clad in chamferboards. The verandah floors are lined with shot-edge timber boards. The ceilings to the lower level verandahs are also lined with timber boards. On the upper level, the underside of the verandah roof is unlined and the rafters are exposed. The front door is on the eastern façade, which looks across to the road and the river beyond. The door is low waisted with four panels, and surrounded by glass and timber sidelights, and a pivoting glass fanlight. The windows opening onto the ground floor rooms of the main house are large double-hung sashes, with a single pane in each sash.
Inside, on the ground floor, the main core of the house consists of four large rooms disposed either side of a central hallway. This hallway opens, at the end opposite to the main door, into the breezeway that separates the main house from the kitchen. A cedar stairway leads from this hall to the level above, completing its half-turn using winders. The joinery throughout the house is cedar, but it is otherwise constructed with the pine, possibly cypress, cut and milled by the owner's company. There is a further straight stair situated on the rear, north-western verandah. On the upper level there are six rooms disposed around the hallway, two to the right after leaving the stair, and four to the left. Each room opens onto the encircling verandahs, as do each end of the hallway.
A small skillion-roofed structure has been attached to the rear, north-western façade of the house. Also, in the yard area adjacent to the south-western facade of the kitchen, is situated a small meat house. This structure has a pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron, and supported in part by chamferboard clad walls and timber posts. A narrow zone between the underside of the roof and the wall cladding is open to encourage ventilation.
","history":"The Anchorage is a two-storied timber house built in 1903 for Andrew William Nixon.
\nThe district in which The Anchorage homestead is located was first explored in 1846 by Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, while trying to find a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Mitchell established a base camp on the site of the present town of St George and in April 1846 St George crossing was named after Mitchell discovered the Balonne River on St George's Day.
\nTwo years later, in 1848, the New South Wales government granted the first St George leases to settlers who established cattle and sheep runs in the area, but it was not until 1863 that St George was surveyed as a township. Although the effects of droughts and floods as well as frontier hostilities initially hindered the development of St George, it was described in Pugh's Almanac of 1880 as 'a thriving township'. By 1888, St George was 'a large township' and Pugh's Almanac considered it to be 'the centre of a flourishing pastoral district'. The 1880s was a period of growth in St George and was at that time a place of opportunity for new arrivals.
\nAndrew William Nixon was one who found success in the district. He was born to Scottish parents at Adelong in New South Wales in 1854. Nixon was apprenticed as a blacksmith in Corowa before moving to Melbourne and then to Jerilderie where he established his own blacksmithing business around the time the Kelly gang of bushrangers was in the area. By 1882, Nixon had made his way to St George with his family and was working in the district on contract work, including the construction of the first bridge across the Balonne River in 1890. Nixon reputedly amassed a small fortune from his contracting and having previously obtained shares in the Australian Steam Sawmills on the Balonne River, he eventually bought out the other shareholders and developed the sawmills into a profitable business. Towards the end of the 19th century, the mills became less viable as the supply of timber in the area diminished and Nixon redirected his energies towards agricultural pursuits. He accordingly purchased 320 acres upon which he erected a homestead and made a viable living from cultivating the land. He then took up about 90,000 acres in the surrounding district, some of which had originally formed part of the 'Cypress Downs' and 'Mona' stations. This acquisition allowed Nixon to expand his pastoral enterprise and its location near the Balonne River provided water for both irrigation and for the steam engines of his sawmill, which today remain on the property.
\nNixon began construction of The Anchorage in 1903, situated on a 16,000 acre parcel of land on the western bank of the Balonne River and surrounded by a plantation of orchard trees and a flower garden. It was reputedly his third house in the area and is constructed primarily from local cypress pine, which was milled in the Australian Steam Sawmills under the direct supervision of Nixon. Built by Arthur Bennett, this grand house was a reflection of the development of St George by the early 20th century, as well as an indication of Nixon's personal burgeoning fortune. The 12 rooms of the homestead were apt accommodation for Nixon's large family, and were described in The History of Queensland by Matthew Fox as 'large, lofty, and well-ventilated, every attention having been paid to the important considerations of health and comfort in their design. The additional offices and outhouses have also been planned with a view to convenience and fitness, each for the purpose to which it is allotted'.
\nNixon remained for many years an active participant in local community life, serving at various times on the Balonne Shire Council and the local hospital board, as well as vice-president of the Balonne Pastoral and Agricultural Association and a number of other community groups. Following Nixon's death in 1951, The Anchorage estate passed to his son, Andrew William Nixon, as administrator of his will. Andrew William Nixon junior died in 1962, after which title is registered in 1969 in the names of his siblings, Marston Alma Nixon, Isabella Ellen Nixon and Charles David Nixon. When Charles David Nixon passed away in 1970, title to his portion of the land was bequeathed to his sisters as joint owners, before Isabella Ellen Nixon was registered as the sole owner of the property in 1974. Four years later, title was transferred to Gureba Pty Ltd, a holding company for SH Andersen & Sons, after which it became a sheep and cattle property. The property has since changed hands a number of times, with a lot reconfiguration separating the Anchorage homestead from the earlier large landholding.
","criteria":"The Anchorage demonstrates the development of the St George district in the early 20th century, being a modern and quite urban homestead built on what was one of the first properties producing commercial agricultural crops in the area. It is also of interest as the home of Andrew William Nixon, a saw miller, who personally selected and supervised the cutting of timber used in its manufacture, thus providing an example of building practices in this era.
|The Anchorage has considerable aesthetic appeal as a well-designed and constructed building made of local materials and as a grand house designed in response to contemporary views regarding health and climate.
|The Anchorage is important for its association with Andrew William Nixon, a local pioneer and influential member of the community who made a considerable contribution to the development of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16443,"place_ref":601683,"name":"Bullamon Homestead","alternate_name":"Gerar","street_address":"Moonie River","suburb":"THALLON","lga":"BALONNE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-02","description":"The Bullamon Homestead site extends about 150 metres along the east bank of the Moonie River, and encompasses a residence, associated buildings and foundations, and an extensive garden. The outbuildings include a bath house, tank stand, and out house. There are the remains of a brick drain water reticulation system for the gardens.
The house originally consisted of a two-roomed building of dropped-log construction (probably Cypress pine), with a hipped, shingled roof and verandahs on all sides. This core, with its massive timber uprights, horizontal dropped logs, and shingled roof, survives, and sits on the original bedlogs. Other evidence of early construction includes treenails, adzed timber and an early system for barring the doors with internal metal fittings.
A c1890s corrugated iron roof has been placed over the shingle roof, and there are two false dormer vents in the corrugated iron roof near the chimneys of the kitchen and living room.
The interior and some of the exterior walls are lined with wide, horizontal tongue and groove boards, at a later date to the original construction, probably 1870s or 1880s. The living room ceiling is angled above door height matching the angle of the original roofline. Several early doorways are boarded over with the tongue and groove lining and the kitchen has a later flat, boarded ceiling.
A later partition in the northern room, now the lounge room, forms a central hallway. The southern room is a kitchen. There is a brick fireplace and chimney in the north wall of the lounge room and in the south wall of the kitchen. The kitchen fireplace has been replaced with a stove recess containing a Crown wood stove, in the western wall of the kitchen.
Sections of the verandahs have been enclosed variously with corrugated iron, timber and gauze as bedrooms: two rooms on the north verandah, each with a hessian ceiling and one with canvas lining to the walls; an adjacent bedroom on the northern end of the west verandah; a room on the south verandah; and another at the southern end of the east verandah.
There are a number of outbuildings associated with the residence. The bath house, of timber-framed weatherboards with a corrugated iron roof, is a later structure to the residence. There is an early square tank stand nearby. A two-seater weatherboard out house has a square pyramid roof of corrugated iron with a wood finial. To the south of the out house is a small burial ground containing the graves of two children buried in 1877 and 1882. Further south are the remains of a gardener's hut. The remains of an extensive garden are visible. Ornamental gardens to the east and north of the house remain along with remnants of the brick irrigation drains which supported a large vegetable garden. North of the house are the possible footings and brick hearth of another early building.
","history":"Bullamon Homestead, on the Moonie River 1km southwest of Thallon, was established by the early 1860s, being marked on Surveyor FT Gregory's map of the district drawn in April 1864. In the 1880s Bullamon was head station for the largest aggregation of leases ever recorded in Balonne Shire. The name is understood to mean 'biggest waterhole', and the homestead is located on a large sandy ridge above the Moonie River.
Scattered settlement had spread north from the Liverpool Plains to the Moonie River area as early as the mid-1840s. The Maranoa, a vast area of first-class grazing land watered by the Moonie, Balonne, Narran and Culgoa rivers, was gazetted a pastoral district in 1848, following Sir Thomas Mitchell's exploration of the area in 1845-46. A grab for land ensued and by 1862, the whole of the Maranoa had been taken up as pastoral runs.
Bullamon Homestead was erected on Gerar, a small sheep run of just over 20 square miles, first leased to Richard Bligh in 1857, but transferred in 1859 and again in 1860, before taken up by Leonard McKay in 1864. In 1866 the lease was transferred to John McKay & James McCormick. Duncan Forbes McKay, grazier, and his young family were resident at Bullamon by at least October 1866, and it is likely the log house had been constructed by this time. By 1868 Bullamon Homestead supported the McKay family, an overseer, 4 drovers, 2 contractors [probably ringbarking or fencing], a storekeeper and a blacksmith. The lease was transferred to DF McKay in 1873, by which time he also owned Nindi-gully homestead on the Ana Ninghan East run on the Moonie River, north of Gerar, and held the leases to several other runs in the area and along the Culgoa River. By 1874 McKay was based at Nindi-gully, and his general manager, William Turnbull, occupied Bullamon Homestead. About 1876 James Hill replaced Turnbull as manager at Bullamon, and two of his infant sons who died in 1877 and 1882 lie buried near the house.
In 1880 McKay sold the Gerar lease and Bullamon Homestead to Hurtle Fisher of Melbourne. In the early 1880s, Melbourne brothers Charles Brown and Hurtle Fisher, who already held extensive pastoral leases in South Australia, Victoria, and the Darling Downs, purchased the leases of various small Maranoa runs totalling over 2 million acres, known locally as 'Fisher Country'. Although not in partnership - Charles operated his Queensland interests as CB Fisher & Co. and Hurtle was in partnership with James Hill of Adelaide as Fisher & Hill - Charles backed Fisher & Hill financially.
The largest of their aggregations in what later became Balonne Shire was Fisher & Hill's Bullamon. When consolidated in July 1888 under the provisions of the 1884 Crown Lands Act, Bullamon comprised 42 runs in the Moonie River area and totalled approximately 878,720 acres. Bullamon Homestead was the head station for this group, with buildings valued at £2,000 in September 1887. There were two outstations: Nindi-gully on Ana Ninghan East run and Bandy Andy on Minimi. Following consolidation the property was divided, with nearly 780 square miles resumed for grazing farms and 593 square miles, including Bullamon Homestead, retained by Fisher & Hill as leasehold.
The Fishers had bought into the Maranoa in the early 1880s during good seasons. However, severe drought in 1883-84 followed by widespread depression in the pastoral industry post-1885, forced CB Fisher to float the Fisher brothers' Queensland properties as the Australian Pastoral Company Limited in England in 1888. By 1890 the Company controlled all the Fishers' vast Maranoa holdings: Noondoo [over 790,000 acres]; Cubbie [over 413,000 acres]; Gnoolooma [over 218,000]; Doondi [over 635,000 acres]; and largest of all, Bullamon, acquired in January 1889, to which was added Hollymount, Burgorah, Weeyan and Wagoo [totalling 1,044,000 acres]. During the 1890s, the Company ran up to 1,000,000 sheep and operated 7 big shearing sheds and 3 wool-scours on 'The Group'. The general manager resided at Noondoo Homestead, which was more central to the Company's holdings than Bullamon. In the early 1890s the Company made substantial improvements, including re-roofing a number of Bullamon buildings with corrugated iron.
Of all the Australian Pastoral Company's holdings, the Bullamon aggregation was most prone to flood, drought and prickly pear, and made constant losses through the 1890s and early 1900s. Floods in 1890 sent 1.3 metres of water through the Bullamon Homestead residence and drowned 60,000 of the leasehold's 125,000 sheep. After the 1902 drought Bullamon was shut down and remained unstocked until seasonal conditions improved.
Small resumptions were made in the 1890s and in 1904 a further 133 square miles was taken. In 1910 the St George Progress Association requested that the government resume all of Bullamon, much of which was thickly infested with prickly pear, for closer settlement. In 1914, 200 square miles was surrendered to the government, leaving the Australian Pastoral Co. with 240 square miles, most of which had been ringbarked and kept free of prickly pear. By the 1960s all of the Bullamon leasehold had been converted to grazing farms. Bullamon Homestead was acquired in the late 1960s by the present owner, who occupied the c1860s residence until 1985.
Before 1911, when the rail line was extended to Thallon, Bullamon was a Cobb & Co. stop and stabled horses for them from at least 1898 through to 1912. The homestead was also on the mail service from St George to Mungindi in the early years of the 20th century. Today, the homestead is located on a principal highway from New South Wales to St George and western Queensland.
","criteria":"Bullamon Homestead is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being closely associated with the establishment of pastoralism in the Moonie River district in the mid-19th century.
|The residence at Bullamon Homestead offers rare evidence in Queensland of early bush construction technology employing dropped-logs, treenails, adzed timber uprights, bedlogs and shingle roofing.
|Bullamon Homestead has the potential to yield information on other aspects of early settler life and building construction on the Queensland frontier.
|Bullamon Homestead retains a substantially intact mid-19th century timber residence and evidence of its associated gardens, including a brick irrigation system, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a remote early head station in southwest Queensland. The small, unpretentious, two-roomed timber house, constructed and adapted in the mid-19th century, illustrates its role as a manager's residence as well as the remoteness of the location at the time of construction.
|Bullamon Homestead has a special association for the local community with the early establishment of pastoralism as the dominant economic activity in the Moonie River district, and features prominently in local histories.
|In particular, the place has a strong association with the important pastoral pursuits of the Fisher brothers and their Australian Pastoral Co. Ltd from the early 1880s to the middle of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} ]}