The former Cardwell Post Office is located on the southern corner of Victoria Street, the main street of Cardwell, and Balliol Street opposite the foreshore fronting the entrance to Hinchinbrook Channel. It is part of a precinct of government buildings, including the former Shire Hall, Police Station and residence, former Court House, CWA building and Cardwell State School.
The building is a single-storeyed timber structure, consisting of four rooms with a central corridor, surrounded by verandahs to all four sides with a kitchen house at the rear connected by an enclosed walkway. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof, with a break in pitch to the verandahs. There are some concrete stumps, but most are of timber.
The northeast verandah, and much of the northwest, has been enclosed with corrugated fibrous cement sheeting and has both timber sash and aluminium sliding windows. The western verandah corner is enclosed with chamferboard, part of the southeast has also been enclosed with chamferboard to form a bathroom, and the other verandahs have been enclosed with glass louvres and fibrous cement sheeting. The kitchen house is of single-skin chamferboard with sash windows and a hipped corrugated iron roof.
The single-skin building has weatherboard to the verandah walls with beaded horizontal boarding to the inside face of the two northeast rooms. Internal walls have vertical boarding and tie rods have been inserted connecting the top plates of opposite walls. Ceilings are boarded, with the outer edge being raked to the walls. Doors are timber panelled, with the front and back doors having glass fanlights.
The northern room was used as the post office and retains some early timber fixtures including shelving and drawers. This room has a counter, with a timber battened panel above, opening to the enclosed northern corner verandah. The eastern room has a large louvred window in the northeast wall, and a timber fireplace surround attached to the southeast wall over an enclosed doorway. Both rear rooms have tall casement windows, and verandahs have unlined ceilings.
A Coconut Palm is located at the northern corner of the site, another Palm is to the west of the building, and a Mango tree is at the south of the site. The property has a timber post and rail fence with wire infill to both street frontages. A weatherboard toilet is located to the south, and a timber tankstand with concrete stumps is located to the northwest, of the kitchen house. A Telecom Substation adjoins the southwest boundary.
","history":"This single storeyed timber building was erected in 1870 as the Telegraph Office in Cardwell. Designed by the Colonial Works office, the Superintendent of Roads and Buildings at the time was Charles Tiffin. The contract for the building was let to George McCallum of Brisbane. Records indicate that the building was prefabricated in Brisbane and shipped to Cardwell where it was erected on the present site. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of prefabricated post office buildings, reflecting the need to erect substantial Government buildings in remote settlements where structures were otherwise relatively unsophisticated.
The Cardwell town reserve was proclaimed in July 1864, and Cardwell was settled with a great deal of confidence and Government support for its future role in the development of North Queensland, as it had a deep, sheltered harbour. A substantial government infrastructure was established in Cardwell, including a pilot's quarters, police barracks and lockup, customs house and sub-collector's residence, lands office, and telegraph station, which reflected this enthusiasm. A Post Office was opened in Cardwell in 1864, the first Post Master also officiating as the District Registrar, Sub Collector of Customs, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Harbour Master.
The telegraph office and the police station were among a group of government buildings erected on Section 42 of the town reserve, also referred to as the Government reserve. Tenders were called for the erection of a telegraph office in Cardwell in October 1869, and the office opened in 1870. A combined post and telegraph office was established soon after, and the majority of Post Masters from 1870-1893 were employees of the Electric Telegraph Department. It was made an official post office in 1893, as part of a state-wide move to make official all post offices at telegraph offices.
The erection of a telegraph office in Cardwell coincided with the expansion of the telegraph service in Queensland. The establishment of a telegraph line from Bowen to the Gulf of Carpentaria was considered desirable for two main reasons; to serve the settlers in the area, and there was the possibility of joining the proposed overseas cable from Java. The telegraph line reached Cardwell in December 1869. Tenders had been called in September 1869 for the erection of telegraph lines from Cardwell to Gilberton and then to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the two sections were completed in 1871 and 1872 respectively. Although the overseas cable joined the South Australia Overland Telegraph line at Darwin in 1872, the line from Cardwell successfully served the settlers in the Gulf region.
The port of Cardwell never developed into an important port for North Queensland, as access between the harbour and the hinterland was obstructed by the mountain range to the west of the town. Townsville became the principal access point for inland travel, and rapidly bypassed Cardwell in growth and development.
The configuration of the building with four core rooms and detached kitchen was the most common form of timber telegraph/post office buildings in the nineteenth century. The Cardwell office appears to have been the first of approximately thirty buildings erected in this form during the period 1869-1885.
The design of the building required adaptation to suit the tropical climatic conditions. The timber shingles on the roof rotted, and by 1890 had been covered with iron. In 1904 the shingles were removed and iron roof replaced. The building had been constructed on low stumps without ant caps, and had been infested with termites by the 1890s. Renovation of the building in 1897 included the replacement of some floorboards and restumping the building on higher stumps with ant caps. A chimney and fireplace erected as part of the original building were removed.
The verandahs were progressively enclosed to include a bedroom, bathroom, and extension of the office. The original detached kitchen appears to have been demolished and replaced by a larger kitchen by 1896. The kitchen was linked via a covered walkway to the main building by 1904.
The post office was made an unofficial post office in 1966, and sold by the Commonwealth Government in 1967. It was acquired by Mr Bill Wilson, a former Cardwell Post Master, and it continued to serve as an unofficial post office until c1983 when a new post office was opened in Cardwell. The building has been used as residence in recent years and was acquired by the present owners in 1988.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history in particular the establishment of Cardwell, initially as the port for North Queensland, and the expansion of telegraphic communication in Queensland.
|It demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular, it is one of the oldest and one of the few extant telegraph/post office buildings erected c1869 - c1885
The Former Post Office, Cardwell is one of few remaining prefabricated telegraph/post office buildings, and is one of the oldest timber buildings, in North Queensland
|The configuration of the building with its four room core and detached kitchen block and roof form demonstrates the principal characteristics of a common telegraph/post office building design type, used from c1869 - c1885 and of an 1860s-1870s government building.
|The place is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the buildings and grounds, through siting, scale, form and planting, to the Victoria Street streetscape and Cardwell townscape and the intactness, in particular the plan, form and interiors of this timber and iron building.
|As a premises which operated as a Post Office from 1870 until 1983, it has a strong association with the Cardwell community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","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 is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15168,"place_ref":600393,"name":"Stone Bridge, Dalrymple Gap Track","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Dalrymple Gap Road","suburb":"CARDWELL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The stone bridge on the Dalrymple Gap Track is situated on the eastern side of Cardwell Range approximately 200 metres from Dalrymple's Gap, on the old road between Cardwell and the Valley of Lagoons. It traverses the deep, narrow valley of Damper Creek, at about the 300 metres contour, and in form is a brick-lined culvert set in a stonework embankment.
The embankment measures approximately 6 metres wide at the top [the road surface] by 20 metres long, and is 5.5 metres high on the upstream side and 7 metres high on the downstream side. It is constructed of stone rubble and soft mortar, and has a single circular conduit of approximately 1.5 metres in diameter to carry water under the roadway during the wet season. This conduit is lined with a double layer of bricks.
","history":"The stone and brick culvert near Dalrymple Gap, south of Cardwell, was constructed in late 1864/early 1865, and is understood to have been part of the first major civil engineering work undertaken in North Queensland: the construction of the Dalrymple Gap Track linking Cardwell to its hinterland and the Valley of Lagoons on the upper Burdekin River.
In 1863, explorer George Elphinstone Dalrymple, in partnership with Arthur and Walter Scott, had taken up the Valley of Lagoons run, which was separated from the coast by two densely forested mountain ranges - the eastern range know known as Cardwell Range, and the inner Seaview Range. Early in 1864 Dalrymple, with Queensland government sanction though not funding, sailed from Port Denison [Bowen] to Rockingham Bay/Port Hinchinbrook, where he established a settlement to be named Cardwell, then turned his attention to finding a dray route west to the interior and the Valley of Lagoons.
After an initial unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Cardwell Range near Meunga Creek, Dalrymple discovered an Aboriginal path leading directly to what became known as Dalrymple Gap, between Mount Leach and Mount Arthur Scott, about 10 miles south of the settlement at Port Hinchinbrook. Beyond lay the Herbert River valley, and beyond this the Seaview Range, which was crossed with considerable difficulty to reach the Valley of Lagoons on the Burdekin. On their return journey, Dalrymple's party cleared, and in parts formed, a rough dray track to the coast.
In the second half of 1864, the Queensland government allocated £2,000 to fund further work on the road. In late 1864, a government road party was dispatched to Cardwell. On arrival, Dalrymple proceeded with Mr Conlan, the road party overseer, to mark out the route to be formed through Dalrymple's Gap to the Vale of Herbert station, reducing the length of road from 36 miles to 28 miles. Mr Conlan and party then worked on the ascent of Dalrymple Gap on the coast side. The western side of the route was let out in three sections, each of 1½ miles, to hasten completion of the project.
By 20 January 1865, the government road party had completed a road of easy gradient from the bottom to the top of the pass on the coast side. It is probable that the bridge was constructed during this period, because Dalrymple reported in a letter of 22 February 1865 that work on the road would be completed by the end of March, including the felling of timber, removal of obstructions, and crossings of creeks made, including the construction of ' substantial culverts' where necessary.
The Dalrymple Gap Track had its heaviest use in the period 1864-1872. In the late 1860s and early 1870s pastoralists and sugar-growers took up the Herbert River valley, and by early 1871 nearly 100 people were resident on the Herbert. A bridle track was found from the Herbert to Cardwell via Cardwell Gap (then Victoria Pass), which subsequently was formed into a dray road. After this opened in October 1872 there was little need for the much steeper route over Dalrymple Gap, although Cardwell Divisional Board funded occasional maintenance work until the early 1890s.
The Queensland Forest Service has managed the Dalrymple Gap Track since 1987. Most of the track, including the stone bridge/culvert, was included within the Lumholtz National Park gazetted in 1992. It remains a popular bushwalking track. The bridge underwent conservation work in 2001.
","criteria":"The Stone Bridge, a culvert on the early dray road over Dalrymple's Gap, is important in illustrating the early development of this area in the mid-1860s when the connection of pastoral properties on the Tableland with the coast and the establishment of a port were vital to permit development.
The bridge has an association with the life and work of George Dalrymple an early explorer in North Queensland.
|It is rare as the oldest remaining stone bridge/culvert in Queensland and the earliest surviving civil engineering work in mainland North Queensland.
|The bridge remains substantially intact, and is an excellent example of mid-19th century culvert construction in difficult terrain.
|The place has aesthetic value, and the picturesque scenery made accessible to the visitor by the establishment of the road in 1864-65, has been admired since the earliest days of European settlement, being a popular site for picnics in the 1870s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","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 is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15407,"place_ref":600632,"name":"McCowat's Farm","alternate_name":"Koodla | McCowats Farm","street_address":"McCowat Road","suburb":"GARRADUNGA","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"McCowat's Farm comprises 9.032 hectares of land approximately 2 kilometres west of Garradunga, a small settlement in the northern part of the Johnstone district on the former main road linking Innisfail with Cairns. The surrounding land use is mainly cane farms and the North Coast rail line passes near the north eastern corner of the property. Approximately two-thirds of the property is rainforest. The main buildings and structures on the farm include the main residence, the cottage, the former cane barracks, and the implement shed.
\nThe residence is a high set four room bungalow with wrap around verandah on four sides. It has a rear annex showing typical elements of a raised two room workers cottage.
\nA symmetrical staircase with dowel railings leads from the ground to a porch coming off the front verandah. The wrap around verandah has two rail dowel balustrades on the north, south, and west sides. The east side of the verandah is enclosed with casement windows and corrugated iron. Storage areas, clad in corrugated iron with two sash windows each, are contained on the south-east and south-west corners of the verandah. There is a 1980s addition of toilet and shower in the centre of the west side of the verandah. Aluminum blinds are fixed externally on the north, east and west sides of the verandah and there a wall of lattice is present as the northern ground floor wall.
\nThe main section of the residence has exposed-stud framing lined internally with vertically jointed tongue and groove timber. Internal ceilings are lined, with unlined external verandah ceilings. Internally there are four rooms (3 bedrooms and a sitting room) and a hall. Internal doors have paired rectangular panels above and below the waist and are reportedly constructed of solid oak. The external doors, two doors leading from each of the three bedrooms to the verandah, are French doors, low waisted with 2 rectangular glass top panels and fanlights. The two doors of the rear bedroom have extra security measures consisting of metal wire sliding doors. There are no doors leading to the verandah from the living room. Italian Muranese glass has reportedly been used for fanlights, casement windows and colonial windows. The house sits on concrete stumps and there is a concrete floor underneath. The roof of the main residence and annexe is galvanised iron. The house is oriented north.
\nA small gabled annex to the main residence contains a kitchen, living area and bathroom and is joined to the rear verandah of the main residence by a short footbridge. The rear north eastern corner of the annex contains the bathroom and a set of stairs exits the annex at the rear, or south side of the building. The annex is externally clad in corrugated iron and the kitchen/living area is internally lined with pine boarding and hardboard. Only the partition walls in the bathroom are lined internally. Records indicate the framing of the annex is Pendar, a local rainforest hardwood. It is externally clad in corrugated iron and has two window shades and aluminum fixed blinds over sash windows on the eastern side.
\nA range of original furniture is present inside the residence, including dining tables, one constructed of large panels of oak, two double and one single cast iron bed, wardrobes and dressing tables, a baby's folding feeding chair and claw bath ensemble.
\nAn iron tank sits above a corrugated iron clad shed containing a shower room at the rear of the west side of the annex. To the south east of the annexe is a dog's grave marked with a cross shaped headstone and a lily garden. Oral history indicates a number of family dogs are buried here.
\nFive hundred metres to the south west of the main residence is the cottage. This is a low set three roomed gable roofed cottage with enclosed front verandahs. External walls are clad with fibrous cement sheeting and internally the walls are clad in a combination of fibrous cement and corrugated iron with timber floors. A corrugated iron lean-to is attached to the west side of the building.
\nThe cottage is raised on short concrete stumps. Three concrete steps lead to the front door. Ornamental cast iron work is attached to the base of the front wall. Three panel casement windows are present either side of the front door and there are three four panel sash windows on each side of the cottage.
\nThe implement shed is located to the west of the main residence. It is constructed of bush timber and clad in corrugated iron. A range of agricultural machinery is contained within the shed, including items such as a 1930s Caterpillar tractor and other old tractors, corn grinders, cane planters and an icy ball refrigerator.
\nThe cane barracks are a long, low-set building located at the front (northern) end of the property. They are constructed of bush posts with hardwood rails, clad in corrugated iron with no internal lining. The external iron has been painted red and the roof is galvanized iron. A bedroom wing runs east/west containing five bedrooms with internal partitions of corrugated iron, each opening onto a north facing verandah. Each room has a window on the southern side consisting of timber frames lined with corrugated iron, hinged as awning sashes. The north/south wing contains one large room which forms the kitchen and dining area, which also opens onto the northern verandah. A large 10-person table constructed of 2 boards, each 55 cm wide, is present in the dining area.
\nA grave stone is located c.9 metres south-east of the south-east extent of the main residence. The grave stone comprises a square concrete slab with a marble cross mounted on it and a brass plaque with the inscription: In Loving memory of Alice Bonar McCowat, Died 2 August 2006, Aged 81; belonging to God and among friends.
\nThe rainforest covers approximately two thirds of the property and forms an impression of a green curtain to the west of the farming complex. Typical species that make up this type of rainforest are described as Acmena graveolens, Alstonia scholaris, Archontopheonix alexandrae, Argyrodendron peralatum, Backhousia bancroftii, Beilschmiedia tooram, Castanospermum australe, Cryptocarya corrugata, C. grandis, C. hypospodia, C. mackinnoniana, Diploglottissmithii, Dysoxylum papuanum, D. parasiticum, D. pettigrewianum, Elaeocarpus angustifolius, Endiandra palmerstonii, E. pubens, E. sankeyana, Ficus racemosa, F. septica, Gmelina fasciculiflora, Helici nortoniana, Intsia bijuga, Musgravea heterphylla, Myristica muelleri, Palaquium galactoxylum, Syzigium cormiflorum and S.kuranda. At the time the place was entered into the Queensland heritage register no tracks were present into the rainforest on the property to preserve the rainforest flora and fauna.
","history":"McCowat's Farm comprises a residence, cottage, barracks, implement shed and remnant rainforest, representing the surviving core of a 120 acre cane farm operated by Thomas McCowat from 1926/7. The farm was subsequently subdivided into its current size for Thomas McCowat's retirement. The property contains the grave of McCowat's daughter Alice who died in 2006.
\nIn the early 20th century Garradunga, a small settlement in the northern part of the Johnstone district on the former main road linking Innisfail with Cairns, was a sugar production area.Innisfail (known as Geraldton until 1911), was founded as the port of Geraldton in 1880 by Thomas H Fitzgerald, who had arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River to grow sugar cane on a 10,000 hectare land grant funded by the Catholic Bishop Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy.. Others arrived soon after and a community was soon established with an economy based firmly on sugar production. A number of sugar mills operated in the Johnstone district: the Innisfail Estate Sugar Mill began crushing in 1881 but was closed by 18851; the Queensland Sugar Company's Innishowen Mill commenced on the Queensland Estate in 1883 and closed in 1891; Goondi Mill first crushed in 1885 and closed in 1986; the Mourilyan Mill opened in 1884; and the of the South Johnstone Mill was established in 1916. The South Johnstone mill remains operational. Mourilyan mill was so badly damaged by Cyclone Larry in March 2006, it was closed later that year.
\nDuring the early 1920s Garradunga became a staging point for the transport of goods and passengers travelling north/south by rail until the section of the North Coast Rail Line between Garradunga and Innisfail was completed in 1924. The Goondi Mill 2 foot gauge tramway, which connected the cane fields of the Johnstone district with the Mill near Innisfail, provided a temporary transport link connecting a 'missing section' of the north coast railway between Garradunga and Daradgee. The rail link transported a large number of passengers in the early 1920s (108,458 during 1921-22) but passenger use declined dramatically due to the advent of motorcars and during the Depression. By 1935 passenger use had dropped to 5-6,000 per year. The rail continued to provide an important transport link between the cane farms, the mills and the port at Mourilyan. In 1929, 92% of goods carried on the tramway were sugar or cane.
\nThe opening of the Brisbane to Cairns railway line took place in 1924 with the completion of the north Johnstone Bridge. This gave further impetus to the development of the Johnstone Shire. In the 1920s the district was producing record yields of sugar, and the prosperity engendered by this is reflected in the many substantial buildings erected in the district in the 1920s and 30s. Between 1920 and 1930 the total population of the Shire ballooned from 5,549 to 18,088 people. The number of recorded dwellings also rose during this time, from 700 to 3,130. Sugar production was regarded as the mainstay of production and white settlement on the north Queensland coastline.
\nThomas McCowat immigrated to Australia in 1904, aged 20, having been brought up at a Presbyterian orphanage in Scotland. He worked in the Presbyterian Ministry in Toowoomba before serving as the Presbyterian Minister in Herberton in 1909 and 1910. On 7 July 1909 he married Mary Barrie Outerson, a recent arrival from Musselburgh, Scotland. Mary reputedly suffered from tuberculosis and died on 13 March 1923 in the Herberton Hospital. Thomas and Mary had two children, aged 8 and 10 when Mary died. It was during Mary's illness that Thomas left the Ministry and worked as a fettler on the railway in Johnstone Shire, to fund Mary's hospice.
\nThomas married Alice Robina Bonar, a descendant of a mining family living in Herberton, in 1924. They had one child, Alice, in 1925. According to family oral history, as a result of Mary's health issues, Thomas was determined to provide comfortable living arrangements for his second wife.
\nThomas and Alice McCowat purchased 120 acres from Mr Ramlock, in 2 instalments on 16 July 1926 and 28 January 1927, for a total of £247, although family oral history indicates that the McCowat's had been farming in the Johnstone district in the 1920s prior to the purchase of McCowat's Farm. They named the residence Koodla, an Aboriginal word meaning shady place and continued the farms operation in sugar production.
\nA Mr Purdy, builder, from Innisfail, had erected the main section of the house in 1920 but what is now the kitchen/bathroom annexe appears to be an early style workers cottage, which was possibly erected at an earlier time. It appears that the annexe was joined to the main house when it was built in 1920. The residence was located on what was then the main road between Cairns and Innisfail. In 1936 the residence (main section and annexe) was dismantled and re-erected approximately 1 km away on its present site, which was the centre of McCowat's Farm, at a cost of £145 by carpenter F Shellback.
\nThe McCowat's lived in the cottage at the rear of the property when the main residence was moved to its present location. The cottage is of similar construction to the kitchen/bathroom annexe to the main residence, being a typical three room gable roof cottage. It is recorded as being constructed prior to 1920, and used as the original canecutters' barracks. The verandah was enclosed in 1936, presumably when the McCowat's lived in it.
\nThe barracks, typical of five roomed canecutters' barracks, and the implement shed, were erected in 1930. The barracks accommodated canecutters working on the McCowat's property and also was rented out to cutters working on nearby properties.
\nThomas McCowat managed the property until he died in 1963. The farm was subdivided in 1962 prior to his death, and the block containing the residence, cottage, barracks and rainforest was transferred to his wife and daughter. Following Mrs Alice Robina McCowat's death in March 1976, the property was transferred to her daughter, Miss Alice Bonar McCowat. Alice died on 2 August 2006 and is buried on the property. Her grave is marked with a simple square concrete slab, with a marble cross mounted on it, and a brass plaque with the inscription: In Loving memory of Alice Bonar McCowat. Died 2 August 2006, Aged 81; belonging to God and among friends. A seashell on the grave symbolises pilgrimage.
\nThe remnant rainforest on McCowat's Farm is a rare type of vegetation, classified by Paul Sattler and Rebecca Williams in The Conservation Status of Queensland's Bioregional Ecosystems as 7.8.1, complex mesophyll vine forest that grows on very wet and wet lowlands and foothills, on basalt derived soils in the Wet Tropical coast. Its biodiversity status is recorded by the Wet Tropics Management Authority as 'of concern' and is known to contain a number of rare or endangered floral species and is a known cassowary habitat. It is estimated that only 10-30% of the original extent of this type of vegetation survives, due to extensive clearing for agriculture. The lowland basalt soils were favoured for agricultural production as they had the optimum growing conditions of rainfall, fertility, topography and temperature.
","criteria":"McCowat's Farm is important in demonstrating the development of the sugar industry in north Queensland, particularly in the Johnstone district.
|The combination of main residence, cane barracks, early workers cottage and remnant rainforest vegetation represent a rare, uncommon or endangered aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The complex of farm buildings, specifically the residence, cottage, implement shed and cane barracks, demonstrate the principal characteristics of sugar cane farms.
|The place has aesthetic value, in particular the high-set Queensland bungalow style residence and the surrounding remnant rainforest vegetation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","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 is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16338,"place_ref":601577,"name":"Tully State School","alternate_name":"Tully Rural School","street_address":"17 Mars Street","suburb":"TULLY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Tully State Rural School is a single-storeyed brick building with a corrugated iron roof, which is capped with a cupola. The building is elevated on brick piers which forms an undercroft playing area. The building has a central entrance gable and two end gables, which are decorated with a machicolation motif. The gables are connected by arcaded verandahs which have been enclosed.
The grounds are well tended and include substantial plantings of trees, palms and shrubs.
","history":"Tully State School was constructed in 1936-37 on the site of the original school, which was destroyed by fire.
The town of Tully (initially known as Banyan) was established in the early 1920s, following the state government's decision in 1922 to erect a sugar mill in the Tully River Valley. The mill buildings were erected 1924-25, and with the mill came the roads, railway, bridges and the township of Tully. The latter originated as a shanty town near Banyan Creek, but was surveyed as the town of Tully in April 1924.
A temporary state school was opened in a galvanised iron shed on the mill site on 30 June 1924, and a purpose-designed timber state school building was erected on the present school reserve in 1925-26.
In late 1932/early 1933, the Tully State School committee, encouraged by the district's rapid progress and the town's function as a regional centre, had agitated for the conversion of the school to a rural school. The rural school system had been introduced at Nambour State School in 1917. In this new form of vocational school, the younger grades followed the usual primary school curriculum, but in the upper grades, boys were taught manual arts, elementary agriculture and farm management, while girls were taught home management and needlework skills, in addition to the more usual academic studies. Rural school status was conferred on schools which drew on a wide regional population for enrolment, and for a town to aquire a rural school was something of a status symbol. Rural schools remained an important part of the education system until phased out in the 1960s, when state secondary education was being expanded.
By March 1934, the school committee had raised £200 toward the construction of manual training and domestic science facilities, and a new block was opened to students on 5 November 1934, at which time the school became Tully Rural School.
On 22 November 1935, Tully Rural School was destroyed by arson. The school was housed in temporary accommodation, firstly at the showgrounds, and then in the local Irish Club and CWA halls, until the present brick building was completed.
Plans for a new, substantial brick primary and rural school were prepared in the office of the Queensland Government Architect, Public Works Department. The Chief Architect at this time was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966). Leven was born, educated and worked as an Inspector of Works in Scotland before migrating to Australia. From 1910 to 1951 he was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951. Other members of the office involved in the design of the Tully Rural School were WJ Moulds and HJ Parr.
During the 1930's Depression a government initiated works scheme was established to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, day labourers and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. This scheme, under which the replacement Tully Rural School was constructed, was instigated by Labour Premier Forgan Smith.
The new school cost approximately £13,000, and contained 8 classrooms, head teacher's room, cloakrooms, and male and female staffrooms. The area underneath was concreted to form a large sheltered play area.
The new building was occupied from the beginning of the 1938 school year, and was opened officially by Hon. Percy Pease, MLA for Herbert and Deputy Premier, on 1 February that year. A new head teacher, Mr C Irish, was appointed, with instructions to turn Tully school into a real rural school. Some of the projects he initiated included: a forestry plot planted with Kauri and Hoop pines and Indian Teak; annual plantings in the school grounds, including a grove of maple [the gardens are now considered amongst the finest in Queensland state schools]; poultry raising; a bushhouse of ferns; garden rock walling; and manual training programmes which supplied the school with blackboard frames, library cupboards, and other joinery. A theatre was built under the school, and a sports oval was developed adjacent to the forestry plot.
During the Second World War, student project clubs raised funds for the local Red Cross and Comfort Funds, with boys growing and selling vegetables, and girls cutting and sellling flowers from the school gardens they tended. At this period the garden included over 300 rose bushes. Domestic Science students made clothing for the children of Britain, and large fetes were conducted annually, the proceeds of which were shared between the school and the patriotic societies.
After the war, Memorial Gates were erected; these list the past pupils and teachers who served with the armed forces during the Second World War.
A secondary department was established at Tully Rural School in 1951, in a temporary timber building, and this functioned until a high school was erected at Tully in 1964. About this time, Tully Rural School reverted to Tully State School, but high school students continued to use the domestic science and manual arts facilities at the primary school for some years.
There have been a number of additional buildings erected at Tully State School since 1937, but these are not included in the heritage listing.
","criteria":"Tully State School, erected in 1936-37, is significant as a substantial interwar building which reflects Tully's growth and prosperity accompanying the expansion of the sugar industry in the 1930s. It also illustrates the State Government's commitment to Tully as a district service centre during the interwar period.
|Tully State School is significant as an excellent regional example of a school building designed for the North Queensland climate, being raised above an open undercroft; with wide verandahs and ventilators. The use of brick and restrained detailing is typical for government buildings of the period, and Tully State School follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department..
|Tully State School follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department. It is an outstanding example of a school building designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect, which at the time was the equal of any architectural office in Australia.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16339,"place_ref":601578,"name":"Innisfail Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 Edith Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Innisfail Court House, designed in the inter-war classical style, is a two-storeyed brick building with a corrugated-iron roof and rendered details to the gables and verandahs. A curved portico forms the entrance to the building and addresses the corner through two columns with ionic capitals. A double-height verandah runs down each street facade. The gables are embellished with broken pediments and Venetian windows.
","history":"Opened in March 1940, this was the third court house to be built in Innisfail, replacing a timber building erected in 1888. The building was designed in the office of the Department of Public Works; AB Leven was the Chief Architect at the time.
The Johnstone River area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane by occurring in 1880. TH Fitzgerald is generally credited with planting the first sugar cane, and was responsible for the erection of the first mill in the area, late in 1881. Also in 1881, a town was laid out at the junction of the South Johnstone and North Johnstone Rivers, known reputedly as the Junction. The name Geraldton was given to the town in 1883.
Geraldton's first official building was erected c1881, probably on the police reserve, accommodated a Police Station, Court House, Unofficial Post Office, Lands Office, Customs Office, an office for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and a gaol. Tenders for a new court house was called in late 1887, and plans for the building indicate the location of the building as on the corner of the police reserve bounded by Edith and Rankin Streets.
The name of the town was changed to Innisfail in 1910. By the late 1900s-early 1910s, the Innisfail district was attracting attention from both land speculators and settlers. The Queensland Government had expressed its intention of opening up the Mourilyan Harbour, and of resuming and extending the local tramline inland from the coast, giving further impetus to the development of the district.
Innisfail was devastated by a record flood in 1913, then by a cyclone in 1918, which destroyed many of the town's timber buildings. Despite these setbacks, the town prospered and opened its third sugar mill in 1916. Soldier settlement was established in Johnstone Shire around 1918, and in 1922, a number of blocks were made available to returned soldiers for growing sugar cane. Completion of the railway from Brisbane to Cairns in 1924, gave further impetus to the development of the district. By the 1920s, the Innisfail sugar industry was producing vast quantities of sugar cane and record yields of sugar, and the prosperity thisbought to the town was reflected in the many substantial buildings erected in the twenties and thirties. These include important civic buildings such as the first wing of the hospital, the Roman Catholic Church, the Commonwealth Bank and other commercial premises. Also important in the town's development were the opening of the Jubilee Bridge in 1923, linking the town with East Innisfail and Mourilyan, and the Dardgee Railway Bridge in 1924.
Although consideration was given to the likely need for expanded court house facilities to cope with an increasing amount of official and legal business, it was not until 1937 that plans for the erection of a new court house were drawn up, including the erection of a new two-storeyed brick court house on the site of the timber court house, and relocation of the timber court house to the east of the new court house, for use as the Police office and barracks.
During the 1930s Depression, Labor Premier William Forgan Smith established a government initiated works scheme under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Act (1930) to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, labourers and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. The Innisfail and Mackay court houses are two fine examples of the substantial brick buildings erected through this work scheme.
The new building was completed in late 1939. Offices for a number of Government Departments were provided on the ground floor, with the court room and court facilities located on the first floor of the building. Minor alterations have been undertaken to the building in recent years, including the addition of a small air conditioning enclosure at the south east end of the court house.
","criteria":"Completed in 1939 as the third court house in Innisfail, this building survives as an example of the development of Innisfail as a commercial and official centre for the surrounding district from the late nineteenth century, and of the prosperity accompanying the expansion of settlement and the sugar industry in the Johnstone area during the early twentieth century.
|The Innisfail Court House is a good example of a substantial brick court house which reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland designed by the Department of Public Works during the early-mid 20th century.
|The form of the building in relation to its prominent corner location, scale and materials, contribute to the Edith and Rankin Street streetscapes and Innisfail townscape.
|Designed and constructed as part of a Government initiated Works scheme created to generate employment throughout Queensland during the 1930s, the Innisfail Court House is also a fine example of the work completed under this scheme.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16340,"place_ref":601579,"name":"Johnstone Shire Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"70 Rankin Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Johnstone Shire Hall is a two storeyed re-inforced concrete building with semi-basement containing shire offices, a hall and two shops. The main facade has a stepped parapet with four banded pilasters defining bays featuring moulded decorative panels representing sugar cane. There is a cantilevered awning over the street with a balcony above, access to the balcony is via French doors. The balcony has a wrought-iron balustrade. The main entrance has three arched doorways through which is the ceramic tiled entrance foyer.
The upper storey features a panelled foyer and auditorium, with a stage and fly tower. The hall has an elliptical arched fibrous cement ceiling, supported on piers panelled with walnut and decorated with plaster fluting and volutes. The lighting system is a combination of many copper framed pendant fixtures with opal glass, and a system of concealed trough lighting providing indirect illumination.
","history":"The Johnstone Shire Hall was constructed in Innisfail from 1935-8, by the Van Leeuwen brothers to the design of Messrs Hill and Taylor at a cost of about £53,000.
The Innisfail area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane occurring in 1880. The town was laid out at the junction of the South Johnstone and North Johnstone Rivers in 1881, and was known as Junction Point. The name of the town was changed to Geraldton in 1883, and to Innisfail in 1910.
Innisfail was devastated first by a record flood in 1913, then by a cyclone in 1918, which destroyed many of the town's timber buildings. Despite these setbacks, the town prospered and opened its third sugar mill in 1916. By the 1920s, the Innisfail sugar industry was producing vast quantities of sugar cane and record yields of sugar. The prosperity of the town was reflected in the many buildings erected in the twenties and thirties, including many concrete buildings such as the first wing of the hospital, the Roman Catholic Church, the Commonwealth Bank and many other commercial premises. Also important in the town's development was the opening of the Jubilee Bridge in 1923, linking the town with East Innisfail and Mourilyan, and the Dardgee Railway Bridge in 1924.
The Shire Hall was constructed when the previous building was destroyed by fire in December 1932. This previous building had been used for theatrical productions and therefore the community were anxious to see a replacement constructed promptly. However council disagreements, state government interference and a change of shire council mean that it was many years before plans for the new Hall were presented and accepted. Messrs Hill and Taylor were commissioned for the design of the building in 1935. They were prominent local architects working in North Queensland between the first and second World Wars. Other public buildings by this firm include the Cairns City Council (1929), Cairns Post Office (c1930) and Proserpine Hospital (1939-40) and the Barron Valley Hotel (1940)
The supervising contractors were the Van Leeuwen brothers, who had arrived in Innisfail from Holland in 1918, they were responsible for most of the major construction work in the town from this date, including the Water Tower, the National Bank, Hotel Grand Central, Queens Hotel, Bank of New South Wales and the Commonwealth Bank.
Hill and Taylor and the Van Leeuwen brothers proposed the cost of the building was to be £36,830. However, over the next few years the cost of the building was to rise to over £50,000, to the considerable alarm of the community and the Treasury Department who were partially funding the venture. A provision of the Treasury's involvement was the use of the unemployed on either day or contract labour, therefore none of the contractors' own staff were employed on the project. The building was ready for occupation in 1938, and after five years in temporary accommodation the Johnstone Shire Council were able to operate from their own offices.
","criteria":"The Johnstone Shire Hall is a substantial inter-war building which illustrates the unprecedented era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the sugar industry in the Burdekin region.
|The Johnstone Shire Hall, constructed 1935-38, is significant as a good and intact example of regional public buildings with Art Deco detailing, featuring locally inspired motifs. The Shire Hall is significant as a building designed by the architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor, prominent local architects in North Queensland between the first and second World Wars.
|The building is an important element of the Rankin Street streetscape.
|It has significance to the local community as the civic centre of Innisfail.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16388,"place_ref":601627,"name":"Garners Beach Burial Ground","alternate_name":"Wilford Hill | Garners Beach Cemetery | Clump Point Private Cemetery","street_address":"142 Garners Beach Road","suburb":"BINGIL BAY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"Garner's Beach, lying southeast-northwest, is situated in a large bay between Ninney and Murdering Points, a couple of kilometres north of Bingil Bay. Middle Beach separates Garner's Beach from Bingil Bay.
The southeastern end of Garner's Beach forms a small bay, where the Garner family established their settlement. The beach is about a kilometre in length with a rocky outcrop at the northwest end. Past these rocks is another small beach [Carstairs], also terminated by a rocky outcrop, and north of this is Figtree Beach, bounded by Muff Creek to the south and Maria Creek to the north. Kurrimine Beach lies on the north side of Maria Creek.
The burial ground is located on private property about halfway up a promontory [Wilford Hill] at the southeastern end of Garner's Beach, and is accessed from Garner's Beach Road. The site is approximately 200 metres from the flat where most of the early 20th century settlement occurred, and occupies a small area 12 metres by 13 metres, defined by, and partly including, vehicular tracks in use on the property.
The burial ground contains the graves of five members of the Garner family: Edith Fay Garner [buried 25 August 1935], Catherine Mary Garner [buried 2 January 1937], Thomas Edward Garner [buried 5 July 1945], Edward Henry Garner [buried 29 March 1965], and Edward Christian Garner [buried 20 August 1968]. The graves are located in close proximity to each other, and face west. Four of the graves share a common concrete grave kerbing, 250mm high by 150mm wide, which has remnant evidence of a simple worked metal surround. The grave of Edward Christian Garner lies immediately east of the other graves, and has a separate concrete surround with concrete corner posts with chain metal strung between them. Each of the graves has a concrete headstone, with a marble plaque attached. The headstones of the three men buried here each displays a sequence of three symbols, in bas-relief and painted black, at the top of the headstone: a ship's wheel, a Christian cross, and a ship's anchor.
","history":"Garner's Beach Burial Ground is associated with the settlement of the Muff Creek area, just north of Clump Point and Bingil Bay, by the Garner family, who held the land around Muff Creek from 1911 to the early 1970s.
The first of the Garner family to be associated with the beach were Edward Thomas Garner, his wife Edith Fay Johnson, and their 3 children. Edward and Edith and their first child, Edward Henry, emigrated to New South Wales c1889. ET Garner was a seaman, and had spent most of his life working on boats, or building them. It is thought that he came to Queensland in 1889 from Sydney, when he brought up to Townsville for the Hayles brothers, the boat with which they commenced their ferry service to Magnetic Island. Garner stayed in North Queensland and took up timber-getting. This occupation brought him to the Clump Point district, where he cut logs from the hills behind Mission Beach.
By c1900 the Garner family had settled in Cardwell, and in the early 1900s were engaged in ferrying stores, plants and equipment for the Chinese who were establishing banana plantations along the Hull River, and lightering plantation produce to the coastal steamers offshore, for transport to southern markets. In 1905 they took up a selection on the Murray River and established a sawmill there, producing packing cases for the banana trade. In 1909 they moved to Bingil Bay, where ET Garner, his son EH Garner, his nephew Arthur Garner of Mundoo, and his son-in-law Adolph [Lou] Wildsoet, erected and managed a sawmill for the Cutten family on their Bicton Plantation near Clump Point. The sawmill did not prove profitable for the Cuttens. They soon sold it, and the Garner family looked around for a selection of their own in the district.
Late in 1910, ET Garner made application to select portion 10v, parish of Hull, a block of just under 160 acres along Muff Creek, with a coastal frontage [now known as Garner's Beach], extending from a promontory on the coast just north of Middle Beach, northwest to Cedar Creek. Much of this block was covered by dense tropical jungle or bloodwood, tea tree and mahogany forest. It had been surveyed and thrown open to selection in 1905, when the Maria Creek district was opened up for the banana trade. Selected by F Dillon in 1905, it was forfeited by 1906, and offered for selection again in 1910 as an Agricultural Farm. In December 1910, ET Garner was granted a 20 year lease on the block from 1 January 1911, and was issued with a license to occupy it as an Agricultural Farm [AF 755].
On the Muff Creek selection, the ET Garners were joined by the families of their son Edward Henry and daughter Elizabeth Ann Wildsoet, and by Arthur Garner. The Garner-Wildsoet families cleared the land and grew bananas for export by sea. Several shipping companies - Adelaide Steamship, Howard Smith and AUSN lines - regularly picked up plantation produce off the various beaches or stream-mouths. The Garners built several boats on their Muff Creek selection - some as long as 60 feet long, with steam or oil engines - and were heavily involved with lightering activity on Muff, Maria and Liverpool Creeks. They transported intending settlers, goods and supplies upstream, and farm produce downstream and out to the shipping company boats offshore. The family also attended to some of the navigation lights in the area. When sugar farms were established in the hinterland in the early 1910s, the Garners commenced lime production, blasting coral from King's Reef with gelignite. This was burnt at Garner's Beach, and transported by boat to South Johnstone, for sale to sugar cane farmers.
By late 1915, over 40 acres of the Garner selection had been felled and was under cultivation: 30 acres under bananas, 8 acres under citrus fruits, and 3 acres under pineapples; with a further 5 acres felled, burnt and partly cleared. Much of the unskilled work was done by local Aborigines, who were paid in food and tools, apparently to everyone's mutual satisfaction. Four 4-roomed houses of silky oak with galvanised iron roofs [prefabricated buildings shipped from Townsville] had been constructed, and improvements included outbuildings and a lime kiln. The property was known as Wilford Hill - presumably named after Wilford Hill, Nottingham, England where Edward Thomas and Edith Fay were married in 1886.
During the First World War [1914-1918], only ET Garner, his wife and youngest daughter [Nellie] remained at the beach. Arthur Garner joined the AIF and served at Gallipoli, and EH Garner and his family left the beach to take up timber-hauling work near Silkwood. The principal shipping companies, with many of their vessels commandeered for war purposes, curtailed their coastal trade, and Clump Point settlers like the Garners lost access to southern markets. However, until the completion of the Brisbane to Cairns railway in 1924, ET Garner still found work for his boats, which his daughter helped him to run. For a while the coastal steamers continued to call at the wharf in Maria Creek established by the Adelaide Steamship Company c1904, and the Garner boats ferried the cargoes of most of the Clump Point growers from their beaches to the wharf. The loss of markets was compounded by a severe cyclone in 1918, which devastated the district, destroying houses, plantations, boats and a newly completed government wharf near Clump Point. The ET Garner's house, built halfway up Wilford Hill, was swept away.
By the early 1920s, ET Garner had acquired adjoining selection no.1174, and was resident there from at least 1921 to 1924. By late 1925, the Garners had returned to portion 10v, where they had about 800 citrus trees and 12 acres under bananas. There was a 5-roomed house on the property, 5 small accommodation huts, and a cow bail and yards. It is understood that the galvanised iron huts were erected in the 1920s as fishing/holiday accommodation for use by the Garner family, their visitors and paying holiday-makers, but served a more charitable purpose during the 1930s. JG Tierney, who married into the Garner family, later recalled:
Many years later as I moved to different areas in the North with my wife and family I would work with men who, when told that my wife was a Garner from Garners Beach, would tell me of the fond memories of good times they had spent at Garners Beach and I started to realise that there was a story to the family that I didn't know and was never mentioned by them. As I understand it, during the 1930s depression some people who came on hard times were welcome to stay at the beach and as the area was nearly self-supporting nobody went hungry and after a period of time as they sorted themselves out would move on and continue with their lives.
In 1931, ET Garner applied for an extension of his lease on Agricultural Farm no.755 [portion 10v]. This was approved and extended to 30 years from 1 January 1911. A January 1931 inspection of the property concluded that it was a Very well improved farm, recently extra good improvements effected for Dairying.
By mid-1935, the property was being managed by Lou Wildsoet and his sons. On 24 August 1935, Edith Garner, aged 67 years, died at Wilford Hill. She was buried the following day near her home, in what is now known as Garner's Beach Burial Ground, the first interment there. ET Garner retired to Tully, and in 1937 his lease on AF755 was transferred to his son, who in 1941 obtained title to the land as freehold.
The second interment at Garner's Beach was that of Catherine Mary Garner [neé Wildsoet], wife of EH Garner, who died on 1 January 1937 at Tully District Hospital following a car accident, and was buried at Wilford Hill the next day. A late 1930s photograph indicates that a barbed wire fence once delineated the boundary of the burial ground.
By October 1939, EH Garner was making little use of Wilford Hill other than to run a few dairy cattle, devoting most of his time to operating a hire boat, taking fishing parties to the Barrier Reef. He was also rafting logs to Dunk Island for trans-shipping. During the Second World War [1939-45] several of EH Garner's children served with the armed forces. After the war his sons returned to Garner's Beach, built a 45 foot boat they called the Day Spring, and into the 1950s continued taking boating parties around the Reef.
ET Garner died at Tully District Hospital on 4 July 1945, aged 86 years, and was buried the next day at the Clump Point Private Cemetery. This was the third burial at Garner's Beach.
From 1951, the Garner family began to subdivide portion 10v, and in the late 1950s/early 1960s several holiday homes were constructed near Garner's Beach, including the retreat of Australian Treasurer and later Prime Minister, Harold Holt. The Holt residence was located near the Garner graves.
In the 1960s two more members of the Garner family were laid to rest at Garner's Beach: Edward Henry Garner, who died at the Innisfail District Hospital on 27 March 1965, aged almost 77 years; and Edward Christian Garner, son of Edward Henry Garner and Catherine Mary Wildsoet, who died at the Innisfail District Hospital on 18 August 1968, aged 59 years.
Following EH Garner's death, title to nearly 26 acres at Garner's Beach, which included the burial ground, was transferred in 1965 to his son and daughter-in-law, Stanley Douglas Garner and Elsie Norma Garner. They in turn sold the property, including the burial ground, to the Kenny family in 1972.
","criteria":"Garner's Beach Burial Ground has a close association with the work of the Garner family - farmers, boat builders and boat operators - in developing the Clump Point district as a fruit producing region in the early 20th century.
|The family was well-known and highly regarded in the local community, and in their boat building and boat operating activities in particular, made a significant contribution to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | 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":16458,"place_ref":601703,"name":"Tully Court House","alternate_name":"Tully Courthouse","street_address":"46 Bryant Street","suburb":"TULLY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"A facebrick, T-shaped building on a low rendered brick base, the Tully Courthouse is symmetrical about a gabled front entry porch projecting from an open verandah. The gabled entry front has a central bullseye vent and crisscross balustrading to each side of entrance. The verandah is divided into bays by paired timber posts with decorative capitals and has vertical timber slat balustrading. On line with the entry stairs, two sets of french doors open from the general office and to each side there are two sets of french doors and six-pane sash windows opening from other offices. Horizontal bands of rendered brick extend around the building at window head and sill levels.
Two sets of French doors and three timber sash windows open from the courtroom onto each of the north and south verandahs which are both symmetrical about a set of plain timber stairs. The east verandah is symmetrical about a set of timber stairs onto a verandah with enclosed corner rooms which are accessed from the north and south verandahs. The posts and balustrading are similar on all verandahs. Externally the building is substantially intact.
Fence posts, consistent with the character and age of the building, survive marking the entrance to the site and a recent chain link fence borders that boundary of the site. A palm tree sits within the grounds of the building adjacent to the principal entrance and several other large trees surround the other three sides of the building.
","history":"A low-set, masonry building with timber verandahs, the Tully Courthouse was designed in 1941 during a period when Tully, and other sugar towns in Queensland were experiencing a development boom.
Chinese banana farmers had been clearing and farming along the Tully River from the early twentieth century but settlement in the vicinity of the township of Tully began in 1906 when James Savage selected land on Banyan Creek. The upper Banyan lands were opened for selection in 1912 and the area expanded rapidly after 1924 when the Tully Sugar Mill was erected and the railway extended to the area.
The survey of the town site of Tully, named after the Surveyor General William Alcock Tully in 1870, was completed in 1924. A provisional school was opened in a shed on the Mill site in 1924; the National Bank, the first bank in the town, opened in 1925; the Sugar Mill provided electricity for the town from 1927; Cardwell Shire offices opened in Tully in 1930; the town water supply was completed in 1933; and the Fire Brigade established in the 1940s.
Tully was gazetted under the Police Act as a Police District in January 1925 and the first police station was established in a one-room shack with a post to which prisoners were shackled. Tully was gazetted as a place for holding Courts of Petty Session in 1926 and a former post office building was removed from Banyan to Tully and functioned as a court building until the present Courthouse was completed in 1945.
A modest, low-set, T-shaped, masonry building with timber verandahs to each side, the Tully Courthouse was designed in 1941 as part of the extensive public works building program instigated by the Forgan Smith Government to counter the effects of the Depression. Construction was delayed by the outbreak of World War II and the building was finally erected in 1945.
The Tully Courthouse was designed by Nigel Laman Thomas, an architect in the Department of Public Works whose most notable work includes the former University of Queensland Library at Gardens Point, Brisbane. Tully Courthouse displays formal architectural influences adapted to the tropical Tully climate. The layout and form of the building are characteristic of courthouse design of early twentieth century with a general office and associated offices off the front verandah and a single courtroom space surrounded by verandahs in the main body of the building. A well-composed building with formal qualities, symmetrical massing and repetitive rhythmic detailing give a sober, civic presence to the township.
The building has been in continuous use as a courthouse and public offices since 1945.
","criteria":"A modest, masonry building with discrete timber verandahs, the Tully Courthouse contributes a civic presence to the streetscape.
The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in Tully since its construction in 1945. Part of a reserve of police and law enforcement buildings, the building demonstrates the early civic history of Tully.
The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with the development of Tully as a commercial and official centre for the surrounding farming district.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a courthouse building of the first half of the twentieth century and the design and plan illustrate the way in which an interwar courthouse operated.
|has special social value for the community for its continued use as a public building.
|The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with the work of Department of Public Works architect NL Thomas and is a fine example of interwar Queensland public works design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern 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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16505,"place_ref":601768,"name":"Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former) and Honour Board","alternate_name":"JC Hubinger Museum | JC Hubinger Memorial Museum | JC Hubinger Memorial Hall","street_address":"51 Victoria Street","suburb":"CARDWELL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-03-21","description":"The former Cardwell Divisional Board Hall is located at the southern end of the Cardwell business district on the main street, Victoria Street, adjacent to the former Telegraph Office [QHR 600392]. Facing north-east toward, and across the road from, the beach and the Coral Sea, the hall is centrally positioned on its allotment, set back from all boundaries.
\nThe hall is a modest, symmetrical, single storey timber building, low-set on timber stumps, clad in weatherboards, with a hipped roof of corrugated metal sheeting and eaves lined with timber battens. Its front verandah has a skillion roof with central gable supported on pairs of posts demarcating the entrance, and a cross-braced balustrade. Openings are symmetrically positioned around the building with: double-hung sash windows on the front elevation either side of a pair of panelled entrance doors; 6 windows to each side elevation - 4 pairs of casement windows between double-hung sash windows at each end; and 2 pairs of panelled doors at the rear. The rainwater disposal system comprises slotted quad gutter and pvc downpipes.
\nThe hall interior is lined with beaded tongue-and-groove boards and houses a raised timber stage at the rear, flanked by 2 small rooms, and a room in the north-east corner near the entrance formed by partial height partitions. At the entrance, a portion of the ceiling is flat with the remaining coved ceiling featuring timber fretwork roses and steel tie-rods. Varnished timber stairs with matching railings lead from the hall to the stage where a large rouge and white marble memorial honour board listing the names of 26 men and 2 nurses from Cardwell who served in World War I is fixed to the rear wall. The honour board features simplified classical architectural elements (columns, entablature, and pediment) and is prominently positioned within the hall, supported on a substantial timber frame. Loose furniture in the hall includes the original table used by the Cardwell Divisional Board. This table, the honour board and the original stage area of the hall are of particular heritage significance, as is the scale and form of the hall itself.
\nWithin the grounds, 2 large trees are located along the boundary with the former telegraph office. A concrete access ramp located on the north-west side of the verandah provides access to both the street and to a detached toilet facility. These structures are not of cultural heritage significance. Behind the hall are two detached timber structures (a former courthouse and a former lock-up) that do not form part of this heritage listing but are of local heritage significance.
","history":"The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall was originally constructed in 1892 and is located within an early government precinct on Victoria Street, Cardwell. Very few purpose-built divisional board halls or offices survive in Queensland. The timber building became the Cardwell Shire Hall in 1903, and a marble honour board was added in 1922. After the Cardwell Shire Council's administrative functions moved to Tully in 1929 the hall was used by the Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) and later the Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) before becoming a library from 1989-2008. It is now part of the Cardwell Bush Telegraph Heritage Centre and is called the JC Hubinger Museum.
European settlement of the Cardwell district began in January 1864 when a small party landed at Rockingham Bay.[1] The expedition was a private initiative led by George AFE Dalrymple and backed by the Queensland Government. Dalrymple hoped to establish the first Queensland port north of Bowen, which he had helped establish in 1861, and a viable route between the coast and his pastoral run Valley of Lagoons, which was taken up in 1863.[2] Between February and April 1864 Dalrymple journeyed to Valley of Lagoons and returned to the coast, establishing a dray road later called the Dalrymple Gap Track.[3] Initially known as Port Hinchinbrook, the new town was declared a port of entry in May 1864,[4] but Governor Bowen later changed the name to Cardwell, in honour of Edward Cardwell, the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies.[5]
Section 42 of the new town, between Victoria, Balliol, Bowen and Clitheroe Streets, was set aside for government purposes, and included the school, a police reserve, the Post and Telegraph Office, and later the Divisional Board Hall. The district was promoted by both Governor Bowen and Dalrymple, and initially it began to prosper. Money was provided for upgrading the Dalrymple Gap Track in 1864-65[6] and in the early 1870s a large jetty and a courthouse were built at Cardwell. However, Cardwell's potential as a sheltered, deep water port was never realised. The presence of the Cardwell Range behind the town hindered access to the interior and offshore shallows hampered larger ships. Cardwell was soon overshadowed by Townsville, which was declared a port of entry in 1865. From 1869 the goldfields of the Gilbert and Etheridge provided a stimulus for several years, as Cardwell became the terminus for the gold escort, but there was little shipping trade. By 1876 Cardwell's population was still only 150.
Despite the lack of development, the government established a number of services in Cardwell, thereby becoming the main industry in the town and guaranteeing its continued existence. By the mid 1870s a pilot's quarters, police barracks and lock-up, a Lands Office, combined Court/Customs House, Telegraph Office [QHR 600392], sub-collector's (of customs) residence and provisional school existed at Cardwell.[7]
The town also became the centre of local government for the district when the Cardwell Divisional Board was created in 1884, breaking away from the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board. Local government in Queensland evolved in several phases. The first phase, 1859-79, was a system of permissive municipal incorporation, where local residents could petition for the establishment of a local authority, under the Municipalities Act 1858, (NSW), and later the Queensland Municipal Institutions Act 1864 and Provincial Councils Act 1864. By 1878, 18 towns and cities had been incorporated in Queensland.[8] Regional areas were serviced only in part by a system of Road Boards, which had been established under the Department of Works. Consequently, the central government was regularly required to legislate on local community issues. The subsequent pressure on members of the Legislative Assembly to secure resources for their electorate led to widespread accusations of corruption.[9]
The second phase of local government was shaped by the Local Government Act 1878, and the Divisional Boards Act 1879, following expansion of closer settlement in Queensland. Instead of citizens petitioning for local government, the colonial government imposed local government on citizens. The 1878 Act established towns, cities and shires (the latter being closely settled areas close to towns or cities); while the 1879 Act created divisional boards to cover rural Queensland outside the towns, cities and shires.[10] Each division was governed by a board of no less than 3 and no more than 9 members.[11] Pugh's Almanac for 1880 listed a total 62 divisional boards (elected and appointed up to 23 February 1880), while 77 boards were listed the following year. The initial divisions often proved ineffective (largely due to size) and were progressively revised so that by 1902 there were 116 divisional boards throughout Queensland. Divisional boards either built halls or offices, or used pre-existing premises. Of the divisional boards listed in 1902, only 38 were reported as meeting at a divisional hall.[12]
The third phase saw the abolition of divisional boards and the older form of shire by the Local Authorities Act 1902, which created a simpler system of towns, cities and shires. The divisional boards became shire councils on 31 March 1903.
When the Cardwell Divisional Board was proclaimed it covered an area of 7000 square miles (18,130 square kilometres), from Mourilyan Harbour to Haycock Island and inland in a south-west direction towards Charters Towers.[13] Although the authority contained 500 rateable properties and at least 212 ratepayers, only 1 nomination was received for the 8 available elected positions (6 members and 2 auditors). The positions were eventually filled by Governor appointment (upon the recommendation of the police magistrate) but the sheer size of the division, seasonal difficulties and the business demands of the board members meant that meetings were difficult to organise and attendance rates were often poor.[14] In 1891 the population of Cardwell was only 139.
The new Cardwell Divisional Board met in the 2-storey 1870s courthouse in Cardwell, the first Thursday of every other month, until the building was badly damaged in a March 1890 cyclone. The replacement courthouse was much smaller, necessitating the construction of a new public building for divisional board meetings and other community functions. This was erected on the allotment to the north-west of the courthouse in 1892-93, as a dual-propose facility. The amount spent on the new hall, as reported in the Cardwell Divisional Board's accounts covering 1 January 1892 to 30 June 1893, was £320/3/10.[15] Inside the hall, a stage and associated facilities were provided at the south-west end, and a work and storage room existed as a rear annex until the late 1980s.
In 1903 the Cardwell Divisional Board became the Cardwell Shire Council and the hall continued in use as the shire chambers. In April 1922 the Honor [sic] Board Committee wrote to the Shire Council for permission to have the honour roll erected, either in the hall or on the verandah. Councillor Blackman moved that 'permission be granted to place the slab on the wall at the back of the stage and alongside the machine gun'.[16] The roll of honour, listing those men and women of the district who had served, and 2 men who had been killed, in World War I, was carved into a heavy marble honour board by Melrose and Fenwick of Townsville. A special structure was required to transport the honour board and the Cardwell Shire Council agreed to pay for the installation.[17] The foundations of the supporting timber frame went into the ground under the stage and the 'particularly fine Roll of Honor [sic]' was officially unveiled by Premier EG Theodore in May 1922.[18] Another Cardwell World War I memorial, a column by Melrose and Fenwick, was also built in the early 1920s and stands near the jetty.
Despite Cardwell's early promise, its time as the administrative heart of the Cardwell Shire was almost over. During the 1920s Cardwell was economically eclipsed by the sugar-mill town of Tully, surveyed in 1924. The suggestion 'would it not be fitting to name the streets of the Tully town after those who made the supreme sacrifice and those who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their country?' was published in the 'Cairns Post' in January 1927, and Tully's streets were named after those listed on the roll of honour in the Cardwell hall.[19] In 1929 the administration of Cardwell Shire was transferred to Tully, where a new shire hall was soon constructed. The Cardwell Shire later became part of the Cassowary Coast Regional Council, based in Innisfail, in 2008. However, the honour board remained in the Cardwell hall, and in 1931 Tully had to be content with a photograph of the honour board being shown at its ANZAC Day service.[20]
After the Cardwell Shire Council vacated the hall, it was leased to the QCWA, effective from 12 July 1929. The QCWA applied to the Railway Department for electric light to be extended to the hall, but this does not seem to have occurred before 1936.[21] In 1931 the QCWA also moved the timber front doors of the hall to the rear of the building. Despite the QCWA lease, the hall was still used for ceremonies by the Cardwell sub-branch of the RSSILA[22] before being gifted by the Cardwell Shire to the sub-branch as the 'Diggers Memorial Hall' at midnight, New Year's Eve 1945-46.[23]
Other community uses of the former divisional hall over the years have included entertaining visiting politicians, electioneering, auctions of properties forfeited for non-payment of rates, and dances. During World War II, a section of the Tully Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) was billeted in the hall during a recruiting visit in April 1942.[24] Musical and theatrical productions were also held at the hall, some of which left graffiti of their visits on the walls of staging rooms - the oldest is by the Musical Carlsons, who played there on 22 June 1925.
By the 1980s the condition of the well-used hall had deteriorated and concerns were raised about its future. Community sentiment strongly supported its retention, even though a new community centre was proposed for Cardwell. Following public representations it was decided to restore the hall as a 1988 Bicentennial Project, jointly funded by the Cardwell Shire Council, the Queensland Government and the Australian Bicentennial Authority. The works included restumping, re-flooring and demolition of the original rear annex due to extensive dry-rot. Proposals to move the honour board at this time were opposed by the community.
The hall was officially reopened in January 1989 as the JC Hubinger Memorial Library. It was named in honour of Johann Christian Hubinger, who was Chairman of the Cardwell Divisional Board and the Cardwell Shire Council 15 times. [25] In the early 1890s Hubinger, a German migrant to Queensland, was listed in Pugh's Almanac as a butcher, baker, storekeeper and insurance agent for South British in Cardwell.
By 1989 the form of the hall appeared essentially the same as it had in 1911;[26] except that the cross bracing pattern in the balustrading had changed; the verandah posts had lost their decorative capitals; handrails had been added to the stairs; the timber framework of the small gable in the front verandah had been sheeted over and the finial removed; a concrete ramp had been added to access the side of the front verandah and the picket fence had been removed. Four of the 6 sash windows on each side of the hall were also replaced with casement windows at some stage.
The JC Hubinger Memorial Library also functioned as a museum, and the local Returned and Services League used the stage area for a display of memorabilia and photographs. Cardwell's former courthouse and 1907 lock-up were relocated to the rear of the former divisional hall by 2003. The library moved to a new location in Balliol Street in 2008, but the hall continued to function as a museum within the Cardwell Bush Telegraph Heritage Centre, which includes the former courthouse, lock-up and Post and Telegraph Office. The hall was also used for the annual ANZAC Day dawn service until it was heavily damaged by Cyclone Yasi in February 2011.
Due to public support for retaining the hall, and for keeping the honour board there, it was extensively rebuilt in its original form, retaining original fabric in the stage area. The honour board was remounted on its original supporting frame and the hall was officially reopened on 20 October 2012.
Few other divisional board halls survive in Queensland, as most were simple timber buildings that were demolished or sold as local government facilities were upgraded. Other known surviving divisional board halls or offices are located in Nundah (Toombul Divisional Board, built 1891, QHR 600272), Strathpine (Pine Divisional Board, built 1889, QHR 600768), Gayndah (Rawbelle Divisional Board), and at the Caboolture Historical Village (Caboolture Divisional Board, built 1883, later moved).
","criteria":"The Cardwell WWI honour board is important for its aesthetic significance as a thoughtfully designed, classically composed tablet, finely crafted using contrasting rouge and white marble with gilded and leaded lettering. Prominently displayed at the stage end of the hall, it provides a dignified focus for the remembrance of those involved in this major world event.
|The Cardwell WWI honour board is an excellent example of its type. It is located in a prominent position within the hall and is an opulent example for a small community. It is made of fine quality marble and employs classical architectural elements to display, in a dignified and sombre manner, a list of 26 men and 2 nurses who served from the local community. The listing of nurses on an honour board is rare in Queensland.
|The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former), originally constructed in 1892, is important in demonstrating the origins and development of local government in Queensland. Very few purpose-built divisional board halls survive in Queensland, and the hall's simple form and small scale are indicative of the role and limited resources of the early divisional boards. The hall's location is also important surviving evidence of the administrative role of Cardwell as the main town in the Cardwell Shire prior to the 1920s.
The World War I (WWI) memorial honour board is a record of Queensland's involvement in a major world event. WWI memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. Often the focus of ANZAC Day ceremonies, they are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former) has a long and special connection with the people of the Cardwell District. Its numerous public functions as an administrative centre, theatre, Queensland Country Women's Association Hall, ANZAC Day ceremonial site, reception venue, library and museum have generated strong community associations. Community attachment to the hall ensured its survival in the late 1980s when it was threatened with demolition, and also ensured that it was rebuilt after cyclone Yasi in 2011.
Local attachment to the hall's honour board reflects the wider reverence felt for such memorials across Australia. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies it is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16753,"place_ref":602017,"name":"Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mena Creek-Jappoon Road","suburb":"MENA CREEK","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"Paronella Park comprises approximately 5 hectares of gardens, and contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty. The entrance to the Park, and the main buildings, are located at the top of a cliff adjacent to Mena Creek Falls. The falls flow into a large rock pool which contains a small island at the eastern end, and the southern bank of the creek is reserved as the Mena Creek Environmental Park.
A gravel carpark fronts Innisfail - Japoon Road, which crosses Mena Creek via a single lane concrete bridge. The entrance to the Park doubles as the pathway to the adjacent pedestrian suspension bridge which crosses the top of the falls to the Environmental Park on the southern bank. A single-storeyed gable roofed structure fronts the carpark and houses the museum collection. This structure is clad with fibrous cement sheeting and has casement windows.
The Park is entered via a pathway which leads through lush vegetation to the former cottage, now operating as the tea rooms. This single-storeyed with attic structure has a steeply pitched corrugated iron hipped roof with dormer windows, and a timber frame with stone walls finished with a rough textured render. The building is located overlooking the falls, and has a central gable porch on the southwest forming the main entrance. The building has timber framed casement windows, some with metal hoods, and an extension has been added to the rear. Internally the building has a souvenir shop and dining area at the front, with kitchen area and office at the rear. A toilet block is located to the east of the tea rooms, and a terrace to the south of the building overlooks the falls.
The 'Castle' is located to the southeast of the tea rooms, and its three-storey tower is visible from the road. The structure consists of the ruins of the former ballroom/cinema and its associated facilities, and is entered from the southwest forecourt/loggia. The structure is of reinforced concrete with a rough textured render. The forecourt/loggia has a central fountain, a coloured geometric patterned concrete floor, is roofed with a pergola, and is overlooked by the three-storeyed tower. The upper floors of the tower have narrow timber framed casement windows, with a balcony to the second storey. A narrow stair accesses the roof which has a concrete balustrade with squared planters creating a battlement effect. The former foyer and ballroom are open to the sky, and reinforced concrete columns, walls, stairs, and counters demarcate the various spaces. The former kitchen area is roofed, and retains some early fittings and fixtures. A free-standing fabric structure has been erected within the area of the former ballroom to provide shaded seating. The structure has been propped in various areas, and exhibits extensive amounts of concrete deterioration.
A series of paths, stone walls and concrete balustrades with squared planters are located between the tea rooms, the castle and the cliff fronting the falls. Narrow steps with concrete balustrades lead down the side of the cliff to the hydro-electric plant which houses original machinery. The plant is built into the side of the cliff and is constructed on 12 reinforced concrete piers set into the pool below. The reinforced concrete structure has rough textured rendered walls, and its roof has concrete balustrades with squared planters. Much of the hydro-electric scheme survives, including sections of aqueduct at the top of the falls, inlet pit and pipes.
The eastern end of the Park is much lower, and is accessed via the 'Grand Staircase' which is accessed via a path which leads below and behind the castle. The staircase, balustrade and squared planters are constructed of concrete, with markers indicating the levels of various floods. The lower section of the Park has a picnic area fronting the end of the pool opposite the falls. This area has concrete tables, benches and balustrades with squared planters, and provides access to the pool for swimming and boating. A small island is located opposite.
To the northeast of the picnic area is the former 'Cafe by the Pool' which is accessed via paths through lush vegetation which open into a large clearing. This symmetrical two-storeyed reinforced concrete structure has rough texture rendered walls with stairs either end accessing the first level which has concrete balustrades with squared planters. The second storey consists of a central room with side stair accessing its roof which also has a concrete balustrades with squared planters. The ground level has a wide central opening flanked by windows with battened timber valances. The structure overlooks a long pool with a series of fountains bordered by concrete balustrades with squared planters to the east. To the east of this is a large lawn, formerly the location of tennis courts.
The remains of change rooms, toilets blocks and a music pavilion are located nearby, all of which are constructed of reinforced concrete with a rough texture render, concrete balustrades and squared planters.
Paths radiate through the grounds, with the central elements being the 'Five Ways'. The paths vary in their design and materials, with some having stone edgings, concrete bridges, and concrete balustrade with squared planters.
To the north of the Five Ways is the 'Palm Grove', with the entrance to the 'Tunnel of Love' at the northern edge. The entrance has a reinforced concrete structure providing access to the tunnel which connects with the 'Fernery', which contains Giant Ferns, on the opposite side of the ridge. The Fernery consists of a gully through which flows Teresa Creek, a stone lined watercourse which is fed by Teresa Falls at the northwestern end.
The 'Kauri Avenue' runs east-west and is located to the south of the Five Ways. This impressive avenue of tall Kauri Pines provides a dramatic contrast to other areas of the Park. To the southeast of the Kauri Avenue is the 'Meadow', a large open clearing, which leads into further paths.
The eastern end of the Park is screened by substantial stands of bamboo, with a variety of paths providing access to Mena Creek and the other areas of the Park. The Park contains a substantial collection of rainforest plants, and these are identified with appropriate signage.
The Mena Creek Environmental Park on the southern bank of Mena Creek contains a steep concrete path which accesses the southern bank of the pool from the Innisfail - Japoon Road above. A timber pontoon is located on the southern bank of the pool, and barbecue facilities are also provided. Public toilets are located at the top of the path at the edge of a lawn which fronts the road. This area also has picnic facilities, provides access to the suspension bridge, and overlooks the falls and Paronella Park on the opposite bank.
Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park and the associated Unallocated State Land has substantial plantings and natural features, and each contributes to the overall setting for the place.
","history":"Paronella Park comprises approximately 5 hectares of gardens. Designed and constructed by Jose Paronella in the early 1930s as a 'commercial pleasure garden', the Park contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty. The entrance to the Park, and the main buildings, are located at the top of a cliff adjacent to Mena Creek Falls. The falls flow into a large rock pool which contains a small island at the eastern end, and the southern bank of the creek is reserved as an Environmental Park.
Jose Paronella was born in February 1887 in La Vall de Santa Creu, a small village in the province of Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Jose was the youngest of six children, and the family lived in a two room dwelling and Jose's father tended olives for local farmers. His grandmother's tales of 'romantic Spanish castles' and the 'nobleza' profoundly influenced Jose and inspired him to eventually create his commercial pleasure garden and follies at Paronella Park.
Paronella initially worked as a baker in a nearby town, but decided to move to Pamplona to seek work. Before leaving, he was betrothed to Matilda Soler from the same village. While working in Pamplona, he decided to book his passage to Australia, and to send for Matilda when he had established himself. He sailed from Genoa and arrived in Sydney in July 1913, where he boarded a steamer for North Queensland and initially worked at Mt Selwyn in the mining industry for four months. He then moved to the South Johnstone region in January 1914 and worked as a cane-cutter and later as a cook for a cane-cutting gang. Paronella found the working and climatic conditions difficult to adjust to. He did not believe in wasting time or money on 'frivolous pursuits', and eventually saved enough money to purchase a section of rainforest which he cleared and planted with sugar cane. He received much assistance from members of the local migrant community, most of whom shared a strong desire to purchase and farm their own land. Eventually Paronella sold the land for a profit, and over the next few years he purchased, improved and sold approximately 12 cane farms. Paronella also purchased a mining lease at Mt Garnet which he worked, together with several labourers, over the next few years. He was also involved in money lending.
In October 1921 Jose Paronella became an Australian citizen, and was by this time comparatively wealthy. Paronella's goal was to construct a 'Spanish-style Castillo', and it was around this time that he received an extortion letter from 'The Black Hand' demanding £500. 'The Black Hand' was a branch of the Camorra of Italy and the Mafia of Sicily, and reportedly profited by prostitution, 'white-slave' trading, blackmail and extortion. 'The Black Hand' had been established in Sydney and Melbourne, and was making inroads into the successful Italian communities in the Innisfail region. In 10 years, there were reportedly 11 murders, 30 bombings, and many blackmail and extortion attempts. Paronella was susceptible to extortion as he had been involved in tax evasion. The Innisfail district had many Spanish, Italian and Greek migrants, and Mourilyan was known at this time as 'Little Italy'. Paronella decided to return to Spain to avoid both 'The Black Hand' and the taxation officials, and to marry Matilda Soler.
Paronella sailed for Spain in 1924 under the false name Jose Buxeda (his mother's maiden name) to avoid detection by the taxation officials. Unfortunately, since his departure for Australia, Jose had not written to Matilda Soler, and when he arrived unannounced he found that she had already married. Matilda's mother arranged for Jose to marry her younger sister Margarita, who had been training as a furrier in a fashion house in France, and was home on holidays. They were married in September 1925, and travelled throughout Europe on an extended honeymoon. Paronella used this opportunity to observe the architecture and gardens, including tourist parks, cinemas, ballrooms, cafes and hydro-electric schemes. In Madrid, Paronella was particularly impressed with the cafe by the water in the Botanic Gardens, and was also impressed by the work of Antonio Gaudi. In early 1926, Jose and Margarita left Europe for Australia via America, a voyage which would take 7 weeks.
On arrival, Paronella was confronted by taxation officials, who had already deducted £1,000 from his savings account for unpaid taxes, and required him to produce letters attesting to his character before he was allowed through immigration. Once this problem had been addressed, Paronella purchased a cane farm at Mourilyan, near Innisfail, where he and Margarita initially settled and where their first child Teresa was born. Paronella also retained his mine at Mt Garnet.
Paronella intended to find the perfect site for his 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden, and in the late 1920s visited Mena Creek.
At this time Mena Creek was named Stewart Creek (the upper reach of Stewart Creek was renamed Mena Creek by the Surveyor-General in March 1954 after Henry Noone's daughter Philomena 'Mena' Fallon). The area had been established by Henry Augustine Noone who obtained a lease and established a camp (c.1914) at the top of the falls, and for two years cleared the land and felled cedar. Noone, who had emigrated from Ireland in 1888, was a trained surveyor and also worked in various capacities, including as a timber-getter. He was integral in the establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill and the development of the South Johnstone Region. According to his memoirs, Noone was particularly attached to the area and decided take up 'a block or two for canefarming'. He formed a Settlement Group of 40 blocks of approximately 160 acres each, arranged for enough applicants for these blocks, and convinced the government to survey the area (based on his survey). Noone was assigned portion 56 on the southern side of the creek.
Noone regularly brought his family from Innisfail to Mena Creek to camp, picnic and swim. In early 1929, due to increasing interest from campers and visitors, Noone cleared an area along the southern bank of the creek and gave it to the local council for use as a picnic and recreation reserve (this area forms the reserve on the opposite bank of the creek to Paronella Park, and was gazetted in 1947 as a recreation reserve, in 1953 as a reserve for camping purposes, and then in 1976 as a reserve for Environmental Park under the control of Johnstone Shire Council). Noone also opened the Hotel Mena and was integral in the establishment of the school, and it was around this time that Paronella visited the area and selected it as the perfect site for his 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden. At this time it was still a fairly isolated area with mill tramline and horses providing the main transport. The roads were more like tracks, and a train ran once a week to Innisfail but the journey took three hours.
By this time all of the land in the area had been taken up. Paronella convinced the owner of the land on the northern side of the creek to sell him an area of approximately 12 acres which was unsuitable for cane farming, and which fronted the creek and falls. The owner, August Koppen, agreed to a cash settlement of £120. The sale was not finalised until July 1931, however Paronella was allowed to begin clearing the land prior to possession.
Paronella restricted the cost of his ambitious project to construct a 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden by using second hand and locally available materials. These materials included sand and gravel from the creek, discarded cane train tracks as reinforcement for the concrete, timber from nearby abandoned houses for the framing to the cottage and for the formwork to the concrete structures, and clay from his property for the exterior render.
Some of the materials and methods Paronella used when constructing the concrete structures throughout the Park are thought to have contributed to their later deterioration and structural problems. The sand used in the concrete mix was reportedly not suitable for this type of concrete construction, the aggregate content may have been insufficient, and the rusting of the steel reinforcing rails (some of which were rusty and buckled when first used in the construction) was exacerbated by insufficient concrete coverage.
Many of the concrete structures have a modular character, which has been attributed to the reuse of formwork from one structure to another. Paronella drew his plans/designs in a sand box, which the workers would refer to during the construction of each element of the Park. Paronella was strongly influenced by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and the design of Villa gardens visited during his European honeymoon. He also admired the work of Antonio Gaudi, and created garden elements inspired by those in the Alcazar Garden in Seville and the Botanic Gardens in Madrid. In particular, the 'Cafe by the Pool' was inspired by the cafe by the water in the Madrid Botanic Gardens.
The exterior render was made from the clay dug from the site. Initially a cave was created in the side of a ridge in the lower section of the property, and this was gradually increased until it formed a tunnel through the ridge. This tunnel was incorporated into the design of the Park as the 'tunnel of love' connecting the 'palm grove' to the 'fernery'. The clay render was initially the rich red colour of the local soil, but this colour faded due to weathering and the buildings were soon whitewashed annually. The render was applied with a rough finish, and hand-prints are visible on the 'Cafe by the Pool'.
Paronella did much of the work himself. He also employed a canecutter (who had worked as a carpenter in Malta) and the canecutter's nephew to work on the project full-time. He also made use of the large number of unemployed men who had arrived in the Innisfail region during this period, and exchanged food and shelter for labour.
Paronella first constructed a stair linking the lower section of the property adjoining the rockpool to the upper section above the cliff fronting the road. This stair is now referred to as 'the grand staircase', and it was used to carry the sand, gravel and clay to the upper section, and the materials Paronella introduced to the site including cement, steel rails and timber to the lower section.
Next Paronella constructed the cottage, now used as the tea rooms, overlooking the falls. This enabled him to move his wife Margarita and daughter Teresa to the property from the cane farm at Mourilyan. The cottage, which was not constructed in the Moorish inspired style used for the other structures in the Park, comprised four main rooms, an entrance foyer and bathroom, with an attic with dormer windows. The building reportedly had the first indoor plumbing in the region, and was constructed with a timber frame, stone walls (initially unrendered) and casement windows. The family moved into the house on Christmas Eve 1931.
The 'Cafe by the Pool', inspired by the cafe by the water in the Madrid Botanic Gardens, was constructed in the lower section of the property to service the picnic area adjacent to the rockpool. Margarita ran the tea rooms ('Cafe by the Pool'), and Montserrat Gabasa was employed as a housemaid, as well as assisting Margarita serve afternoon teas and helping on weekends with visitors at the gate. Eventually her brother Richard was also employed to assist Jose in the Park. Changing cubicles and toilets were constructed near the picnic area, and a tennis court and music pavilion were constructed nearby.
In 1932 their second child Joseph was born. Jose then began work on the 'Spanish-style Castillo' which some considered to be a self-indulgent personal folly, but which he believed would attract tourists to the Park.
The 'castle' was clearly visible from the nearby main road. The ornamental structure had several levels with external staircases, balconies, parapets and squared planter pots. Paronella maintained a small museum in the structure, and the rooftop formed a viewing platform. The castle contained a theatre/ballroom with stage, which was intended to be used as a reception centre. The entrance comprised a loggia covered in bamboo with a fountain pool stocked with goldfish. Later, a picture theatre was installed, and the room was decorated with textured walls with Spanish pictures, blue velvet drapes edged with gold braid and fringing for the windows, red curtains for the stage, canvas seats, and Black Bean timber parquetry flooring. A large revolving mirror ball (made in the United States of America with 1270 mirrored facets) was installed, and coloured lights were used to create spectacle. An ice cream parlour, cafe, kitchen, bakery and laundry were also installed.
By August 1932 Paronella had completed most of the planned clearing and laid out steps and pathways. Margarita had developed a love of gardening and assisted Paronella in designing the paths and gardens throughout the Park. Inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and the villa gardens visited during their honeymoon, they placed particular emphasis on contrast creating a series of clearly defined spaces which enabled a variety of vistas and differing perspectives, intimacy and openness, and light and shade. With advice and assistance from the Forestry Department, tree planting began in 1932. The Department supplied the trees on condition that 'representative stands of certain species are planted and nurtured', and that they were cared for and never felled. These included Hoop and Kauri pines, and a particularly impressive avenue of Kauri pines was established. Paronella planted over 7,000 trees and the whole Park was threaded by pathways, bridges and avenues. Paronella also built a shaded orchid and fern house for Margarita to tend 'exotic' plants. It is claimed that the Botanic Gardens supplied Margarita with 50 varieties of Maidenhair ferns to propagate and form the nucleus of a collection.
Paronella named the artesian spring after their daughter Teresa, and he constructed several fountains near the entrance to the 'Cafe by the Pool'. The island at the end of the rockpool was named 'Paronella Island' and a bridge was constructed so that it could be accessed for picnics, and the boundaries of the Park were screened with several varieties of bamboo. Paronella considered the Park to be a retreat and, unlike those of more arid climates, the gardens would provide an oasis not from the desert but from the acres of sugarcane which surrounded the Park.
In 1933 Paronella installed a hydro-electric system which harnessed the cascade. The system used an aqueduct from the top of the Falls across to an inlet pit. The water then fell 30 feet, and was within the capacity of the turbine, an English model with variable pitch inlet valves to control the flow, which was directly coupled to a DC generator which was ex-army stock and which Paronella acquired cheaply. Engineers from the South Johnstone Sugar Mill helped to design and install the system. The turbine and alternator were lowered onto a concrete platform built on 12 reinforced concrete piers below the cliff, and the walls and roof were then constructed around the equipment. It was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland. The system was approved to operate in 1934, and the power was reticulated throughout the Park to operate lighting, pumps and refrigeration, and was also integral to the establishment of the picture theatre that Paronella had planned. The system also supplied power to the nearby township of Mena Creek.
By this time visitors were enjoying the walks, waterfalls, afternoon teas, swimming, boating and picnics. They could play tennis or bowls, listen to music, dance in the ballroom or relax in the loggia.
The last building constructed was the gatehouse (no longer extant) from which tickets and souvenirs were sold. A horse-shoe shaped wrought iron sign with the name 'Paronella Park' was installed above the entrance. By 1935, all of the major works had been completed at a cost in excess of £20,000, not accounting for labour costs.
The completed Park was opened to the public in 1935. A Chamber of Commerce Conference was being held in Innisfail, and the Governor Sir Leslie Orme Wilson was in attendance. A visit to the Park was arranged as part of the itinerary, and the Governor was highly impressed and commented to journalists that 'Jose Paronella has created a place of beauty which will be a great attraction to visitors in the future. His buildings are of unique design. The Park is a credit to North Queensland. It is absolutely remarkable to see what one enterprising man can do'. By this time, access to Mena Creek from Innisfail had greatly improved.
The Park proved very popular with the public. A diving board was installed over the pool, lights were strung throughout the Park, and the tennis courts became the venue for the local tennis club. However, high running costs and a series of natural disasters prevented the same degree of financial success.
Although the Park was popular with locals, the tourism industry in North Queensland was in its infancy, and interstate tourists were rare. Only one company, the White Car coaches, brought tourists from Brisbane to the area. Their itinerary included a visit to the 'Spanish Castle'. As recalled by Teresa Paronella, other tourist facilities at this time included the Malanda Jungle tourist park where visitors would watch 'Aborigines climbing trees and doing corroboree dances'. Initially the Park was not a financial success, and Paronella relied on his other business interests for income. At this time Paronella had an alluvial mine at Hot Springs near Ravenshoe, and was still involved in money lending and buying and selling farms. Paronella also installed two petrol bowsers at the Park. He was more than a successful businessman, he was a creative artist and Paronella Park was his monumental work of art displaying imaginative design, architectural planning and skilled craftsmanship. The Paronella family, and their employees, also took guests on guided tours.
In 1940 the first wedding reception was held, and the reception centre could seat in excess of 400 guests. 80 foot long tables were set up, and special china was ordered from Gibson and Patterson in England with a picture of the castle and falls. Several local women were employed to help Margarita with the catering. The ballroom was also made available free of charge for the annual children's fancy dress ball and the Park was made available for the annual school sports day. The Park was very popular with the local children, to the extent that the school had a rule which stated 'no going over to Paronella Park during school hours'. The turbulence of the bubbles below the hydro-electric scheme was 'like a spa', and children also sometimes fished in the pool.
World War Two had a substantial effect on the Innisfail region, and many Italian members of the local community were interned. By February 1942 Japanese forces had gained footholds in territories adjoining northern Australia which made it seem probable that the advance southwards would continue, culminating in the invasion of Australia. On 19 February 1942 the Japanese bombed Darwin, and the United States of America lost its bases in the Philippines. In April 1942 General Douglas MacArthur was appointed as Supreme Commander of the South West Pacific Area, and North Queensland became a hive of military activity.
In the South Johnstone area, many women and children had already been evacuated. Jose refused to allow his wife and children to be evacuated, however he did construct an air raid shelter underneath the shed in the carpark, which was lined with timber and contained a toilet, and shelving for food, candles, lamps and blankets. Much of the local population had gone, through enlistment, evacuation or internment, and basic food and supplies were rationed. However, by April 1943 111,000 USA troops were serving in the South West Pacific Area, and by the end of that year there were over 500,000. The significance of the American presence for Paronella was that it brought immediate prosperity to the Park.
Paronella Park was the ideal location for rest and recreation for both American and Australian forces. Thousands of servicemen were stationed in Cairns and throughout the Atherton Tablelands. The carpark was soon full of military vehicles, and the Americans had substantial amounts of money to spend. The Americans, with their Cairns and Innisfail girlfriends, were desperate for a respite from the war, and the Park provided swimming and other recreational activities, films, dinner and dancing that continued until the early hours of the morning. For Paronella Park, these were the boom years, and the region in general experienced a business bonanza.
After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the servicemen gradually left the region. However, with peace came a surge of interest in North Queensland tourism, coupled with a significant increase in the numbers of local residents who owned a car, which augured well for the continued prosperity of the Park.
However, by mid 1945 Jose Paronella began to show symptoms of a yet to be diagnosed illness. During a visit to Brisbane in February 1946 Jose collapsed, and returned immediately to Mena Creek, arriving just before rising floodwaters closed the roads and railway line. A cyclone had formed in the Coral Sea, and the intense depression brought widespread rain to the whole region. Loggers had been felling the last of the giant cedars in the creek's catchment area, and a large number of logs had been piled up near the creek ready for transport to the timber mill. The rising flood waters lifted some of the logs which had then lodged against the railway bridge upstream creating a dam and blocking the water flow. For the first time, the Paronella family saw the waterfall silenced. Local residents tried to drag the logs from the water, but for an hour a vast lake formed upstream, collecting more debris until the railway bridge collapsed and a fifty foot high wall of water carrying the huge logs hit Paronella Park. The assault continued for 40 minutes and the Park was devastated. The local paper reported 'Steel girders were snapped like splinters as the logs smashed down the concrete handrails and removed whole flights of steps. Another log shot over the cliff on the northern side of the swimming pool and tore off the outside of the power house snapping huge steel girders and leaving others in a twisted tangle. The water pipe leading to the turbine collapsed under the terrific pressure'. Mud, debris and trees lay everywhere, all the garden soil was washed away and the fernery and plant collection was destroyed.
The local community rallied to help the Paronella family. The 'Cafe by the Pool' was abandoned as it was irreparable, and efforts were concentrated on clearing the hall of debris and repairing the damage caused by logs. To ensure that the Park could again be opened to the public, all food services were moved to the hall, and an access road to the lower park was created so that the huge cedar logs could be cut out and hauled away. Electrical technicians from the nearby mill assisted Jose to repair the hydro electric plant. The system was changed to A/C, and the speed of the turbine was increased. Jose bought a second hand alternator from wartime disposals, and to power the carbon arc system in the cinema the A/C would be converted back to D/C.
The final cost of repairs was approximately £8,000, however the Park was not insured for this type of damage. This was a period of extreme economic hardship for the family. The Park was closed to visitors for 6 months, and it was at least two years before the ravages of the flood had been completely cleared. It was during this time that Jose was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Jose Paronella died on 23 August 1948, and is buried in Innisfail cemetery.
Margarita continued to operate the Park, and the property was transferred to both Margarita and Joseph Paronella in August 1954. Teresa married and moved to Brisbane, and Joseph married Valentina in 1952. Margarita died in 1967, after which time the property transferred to both Joseph and his wife Valentina. They had two sons and continued to operate the Park, with further floods occurring in 1967, 1972 and 1974. Joseph died in April 1972, and the property was transferred to his widow Valentina. Valentina married Leslie Juhas in March 1974, and the property was transferred to John and Janice Kickbusch in November 1977.
In 1979 a disastrous fire swept through the Park and destroyed the hall and cafe. The Park was closed for some years, but was slowly revived by a series of caretakers and lessees, in spite of further damage caused by cyclone Winifred in 1986 and a flood in January 1994. In January 1994 Paronella Park was transferred to the current owners Mark and Judith Evans, who have undertaken considerable conservation works and continue to operate the Park as a tourist attraction. A museum has been created with the assistance of the Paronella family. An attached caravan park is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
A pedestrian suspension bridge constructed across the top of the falls was officially opened on 17 September 1988 as a joint Johnstone Shire Council Australian Bicentennial Authority project.
","criteria":"Paronella Park, designed and constructed by Jose Paronella in the early 1930s as a 'commercial pleasure garden' and 'Spanish-style castillo', contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements, set in approximately 5 hectares of gardens, which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty, which includes the Mena Creek Falls and the Mena Creek Environmental Park on the southern bank. Paronella Park is significant as one of the earliest tourist attractions in North Queensland, which was constructed when the tourism industry in North Queensland was in its infancy. Paronella Park is significant for its association with the development of the tourism industry in North Queensland and the Johnstone Shire.
|Designed as a 'commercial pleasure garden' and 'Spanish-style castillo' inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, Paronella Park is unique in Queensland, and is a rare and unusual example of an early tourist attraction.
The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|Paronella Park has suffered several disastrous floods, and one major fire, and as such has the potential to reveal further information about the original design of the Park, and its association with Jose and Margarita Paronella. Paronella Park also has the potential to reveal further information about the development of the tourism industry in North Queensland, and the role of Paronella Park in the development and social life of the local community.
The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|(Criterion under review)
|Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park, is a place of exceptional natural beauty and has considerable aesthetic significance. The place contains substantial mature plantings and remnant rainforest, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape of sugarcane. The design of Paronella Park was inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and as such the park has strong aesthetic and architectural qualities. The concrete structures, which have been damaged by flood, fire and weathering, are surrounded by lush vegetation which enhances the sense of discovery, and romantic qualities of ruined structures contribute to a strong sense of place. The strong aesthetic qualities of Paronella Park are enhanced by the emphasis placed on contrast which creates a series of clearly defined spaces which enable a variety of vistas and differing perspectives, intimacy and openness, and light and shade. Paronella Park also contains a significant collection of rainforest plants, as well as 'exotic' plants.
|The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|Paronella Park is also significant for its association with the development and social life of the local community, and its role as a place of rest and recreation for servicemen during the Second World War. Paronella Park was also a place of entertainment and celebration for the local community, and as such has strong social significance.
|Paronella Park is significant for its association with the energy and vision of Jose and Margarita Paronella, who were prominent members of the local community and who made a considerable contribution to the development of Mena Creek township and Johnstone Shire. Jose and Margarita Paronella were also prominent members of the local migrant community which was integral in the development of the South Johnstone region.
\nMena Creek Environmental Park and Mena Creek Falls are important for their association with Henry Noone, who was responsible for establishing a camp at the top of the falls, surveying the area and giving the land which is now the Environmental Park to the local council for use as a picnic and recreation reserve. Mena Creek was named after Noone's daughter Philomena 'Mena' Fallon. Noone was important in the establishment of the Mena Creek township, and was also integral in the in the establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill and the development of the South Johnstone region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | 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 is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | 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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16777,"place_ref":602041,"name":"Canecutters Memorial","alternate_name":"Pioneers of the Sugar Industry Monument","street_address":"Fitzgerald Esplanade","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Canecutter's Memorial is located on the Innisfail Esplanade overlooking the Johnstone River at the eastern end of Edith Street. It is sited on a small sealed area set among trees and a grassed park-like area. The land to the east of the memorial slopes steeply towards the river.
The white marble monument consists of an octagonal pool from which rises a square section plinth containing a water fountain and bowl on each face and topped by a life-sized statue of a man cutting cane by hand. The cane cutter wears the typical clothing of shorts and hat and wields the trademark cane knife in his right hand. Under his left arm and across his back sweeps a sheaf of standing sugar cane.
Below the statue, two opposing faces of the plinth feature bas reliefs depicting cane cutters at work. That at the front of the monument carries the Latin motto 'UBI BENI IBI PATRIA', which loosely interprets to 'Where one is content, there is one's homeland'. On the other two faces are inscriptions, one in English and one in Italian. The English version reads:
TO THE PIONEERS
OF THE SUGAR
INDUSTRY
DONATED BY THE ITALIAN
COMMUNITY OF INNISFAIL
DISTRICT
ON THE FIRST CENTENARY
OF THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND
1859 1959
Below these panels are cast metal water spouts in the form of water bags over metal bowls. The water then flows into fluted marble basins supported by pairs of conventional dolphins. The whole is surrounded by an octagonal metal railing made in the form of stylised cane stalks topped by tram rails and decorated with implements associated with the trade.
","history":"The Canecutter's Memorial was erected in 1959 by the Italian community of the Innisfail district to commemorate the centenary of the state of Queensland. The life-size statue of a canecutter was chosen, reflecting the importance of the sugarcane industry in the development of the district's economy.
The town of Innisfail (called Geraldton until 1911) was founded in 1880 by Thomas H Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River with 35 South Sea Islanders and ten Irish workers to grow sugarcane on a 10,000 hectare land grant, funded by the Catholic Bishop of Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy. Others arrived soon after, and a community was established with an economy based firmly on the production of sugar. In 1882 a sugar mill was built at Mourilyan in 1882, followed by the establishment of the South Johnstone mill in 1915.
Sugarcane was first grown commercially in Queensland in 1864. The crop was originally grown on large plantations, using South Sea Islander labour as it was considered working in cane fields in the climatic conditions of Queensland was too prejudicial to the health of Europeans. This practice began to change in the 1880s and 1890s however when the state government adopted a policy of gradual repatriation of South Sea Islanders. Queensland sugarcane growers considered workers from the warmer parts of Europe, including Italy, to be appropriate replacement labourers. The first Italians to arrive in North Queensland landed in Townsville in 1891. A small number moved into the Johnstone area during the 1890s, although they came as tenant farmers and not labourers. The first large group of Italian nationals seeking cane cutting contracts arrived circa 1907-08. These Italian migrants were known for their determination to accept hardship and poor working conditions which, together with great economic cooperation, saw many Italian labourers gaining their own holdings.
While many Italians arrived in North Queensland before the First World War, Italian immigration peaked in the years following the war. At this time conditions in Italy were such that many looked abroad to start a new life. Australia became a favoured destination in the 1920s when the United States moved to restrict immigration from Italy. The Australian and Italian Governments agreed on a chain migration system, where Italians already resident in Australia nominated relatives and fellow villagers, leading to the development of a chain immigration system. As a result of this system, family group pocket settlements mushroomed. The strong Italian community established in the Innisfail district before the war was strengthened further by the post-war immigration.
The number of Italian migrants arriving in North Queensland peaked again in the years following World War II. Immigrants from many European countries, including Yugoslavia, Malta, Spain and Italy arrived in Australia as displaced persons, and were indentured to work in the cane fields. Of the displaced migrants, the Italians were the largest ethnic group to be employed in the sugar industry, continuing to make a significant contribution to the sugar growing communities of North Queensland, including Innisfail.
In 1959 the Queensland Government suggested communities commemorate the centenary of separation from New South Wales by a structure of a permanent nature. A group from the Italian community in Innisfail decided to erect a statue. Photographs taken throughout the history of the sugar industry in the Johnstone area were submitted to Sydney artist L Yonna who suggested a statue in the form of a canecutter. The committee formed to oversee construction wrote to the Chamber of Commerce of Carrara, Italy, requesting the submission of designs by suitable sculptors. The design of Renato Beretta, the Instructor at the Carrara Academy of Arts, was selected. The monument was made in Carrara, arriving in 32 cases to be erected by an Italian migrant P Bertolani who had arrived in Australia two months previously. The monument was officially unveiled by the Premier of Queensland, the Hon F Nicklin, on 4 October 1959. It cost £5000 to construct.
","criteria":"The Canecutter's Memorial is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as an illustration of the significance of the sugar industry in North Queensland. For many years, the growth of Innisfail and the surrounding district was reliant on the sugar industry, an industry which continues to the present day to be a crop of importance in the economy of the Johnstone Shire. Erected by the Italian community of Innisfail, the Memorial is important in demonstrating the contribution of Italian migrants to the sugar industry, both as labourers and farm owners. The subject of the Memorial, a canecutter, further demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history as a figure in the sugar industry made obsolete by the mechanisation of cane harvesting in the 1960s and 1970s.
|The Canecutter's Memorial demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as an early example of a monument carrying an inscription in two languages, English and Italian. Constructed in 1959, it is a multicultural tribute to the pioneers of the sugar industry, which predates the nation-wide move towards multiculturalism later in the twentieth century.
|The Canecutter's Memorial is important because of its aesthetic significance as a skilled example of the sculptor's art, occupying a prominent position along the Innisfail Esplanade, an open park-like area situated along the Johnstone River, and terminating long views east along Edith Street, one of the major streets of the central business district of the town.
|The Canecutter's Memorial has a special association with the Italian community of Innisfail, whose members erected the memorial in 1959 to the pioneers of the sugar industry, many of whom were Italian. The Memorial also has a special association with the wider community of Innisfail as a tribute to the pioneers of an industry that has been of vital importance to the development and prosperity of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","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 is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17147,"place_ref":602332,"name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church | St Andrews Presbyterian Memorial Church | St Andrew's Church","street_address":"114 Rankin Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"St Andrew's Presbyterian church is located on a cut and fill platform on a sloping site on the western side of Rankin Street overlooking the Johnstone River. Rankin Street contains several important civic buildings including the Town Hall and the Catholic Church and the Hospital. With the exception of some minor changes to the ground floor and the removal of furniture, the church is very much as described in the local press at its opening ceremony.
St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church is of A-frame design with a rectangular plan form and is located well above street level, accessed by stairs punctuated by large diamond shaped planter boxes. Pairs of doors under large suspended, tiered awnings provide entry to the church either side of the eastern wall. The eastern wall is of a folded triangular form with bricks laid on the diagonal, housed within a triangulated band of perimeter windows and decorated with a diamond shaped leadlight window with a burning tree motif. The western wall houses sash windows to the kitchen and sanctuary and is clad in timber cabin mould chamfer boards.
The steeply pitched roof of the building is clad in ribbed aluminium sheeting with three dormer windows on the north and south sides between the trusses. Where the roof meets the ground, large concrete footings or stormwater drains and planter boxes form the transition. Three triangular roof lights are positioned above the dormer windows at the apex.
The lobby occupies the eastern end of the building where a pair of symmetrical staircases against the side walls lead to the church above and the mezzanine floor for the choir above that. At ground level, access to the hall is via a single, central door opening. The hall is a single volume with an open kitchen at its western end. It has high level windows on the southern boundary and pairs of french doors opening onto the open vestibule along its northern side. The stairs to the chancel and the former vestry (converted to toilet facilities) are located at the northwestern corner of this floor. The eastern end of the open vestibule has been more recently enclosed to form a new vestry. The hall floor is a painted concrete slab; the ceiling is lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting, revealing the timber floor structure for the church above.
The church walls are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove tulip oak boards laid diagonally, radiating out from the apex with center infill panels at the intersection in a dark stained sheet material. Lighting pelmets lining the side walls are decorated with a triangular motif and have triangular cut outs in the base to allow light to wash both up and down the walls. Suspended lighting baffles at the apex filter light from the roof lights above. The chancel has a screen, altar, lectern and planter that also incorporate triangular forms. Behind the screen is a single flight of stairs to the ground floor.
The original furniture (including pews and communion table) has been removed to the present Innisfail Uniting Church and the original royal blue carpet and rubber matting (representing the corporate colour of the former Presbyterian Church) has been replaced.
A manse is located at the rear of the site and is accessed from a driveway along the northern boundary of the property. It has a rectangular plan form and is highset on stumps and framed, clad and lined in timber. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof and enclosed, encircling verandahs. The manse is leased as a private residence and was not inspected in detail. It is not considered to contribute to the cultural heritage significance of the place.
","history":"St Andrew's Memorial Church is a striking, A-frame building erected on Rankin Street to the design of far North Queensland architect, Eddie H Oribin. It was constructed for the Presbyterian community of Innisfail in 1961 on the site of, and incorporating part of, an earlier church building. Its innovative design makes a significant contribution to the townscape of Innisfail.
\nPrior to the first regular Presbyterian Church service conducted in the old Court House in October 1913, Innisfail's monthly services were conducted in the Oddfellows Hall in Owen Street by Mr Charles Fixter, who travelled from Mirwinni.
\nThe first committee meeting was held January 1914 and during 1916 the present church site was purchased from Mary Graham. After a £500 bequest was left by Peter Margach for the building fund it was decided that a church should be built. The church construction was commenced early in 1918 but the framework was flattened during a cyclone in March. The building contractor, Frank Robson, replaced the framework and the church was completed and officially opened in November 1918. In 1925, the ground under the church was excavated and a concrete hall built by Peter Van Leeuwen, made possible from another bequest of £499 from Mary Kate Margach. This hall 36'x 26'was later enlarged by an additional 24' and formed the foundation of the new building.
\nIn 1959, a successful stewardship campaign was conducted in which the people pledged to support the church, and as a result, it was decided to proceed with the erection of a church to the Glory of God and as a memorial to those who had paid the supreme sacrifice in World Wars I and II and during the Korean campaign.
\nThe church was designed in 1959 by Eddie H Oribin while in association with SG Barnes. Eddie Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. In 1953 he became a registered architect and formed a partnership with SG Barnes in Cairns, where they undertook residential and commercial work and church commissions. After Barnes' death in 1959, Oribin continued his work until 1973 when the office was closed down. Other churches designed by Oribin include the Gordonvale Church of England, Proserpine Church of England and the Mareeba Methodist Church.
\nSt Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church at Innisfail was designed to incorporate part of the concrete floor and walls of the of the old church erected in 1918, which housed the Sunday School kindergarten. Plans for the new church were submitted to the Presbytery by Rev Andrew Leslie McKay of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Cairns, following approval by the Innisfail congregation. The cost estimate was £18,000 with furnishings to cost £2,000.
\nTendering for the new church opened on 2 November 1959, closing on 29 January 1960. The successful contractor was local builder AG Pepper. On the 18 May 1960 a new addenda was issued altering the design of the rear wall. Originally Oribin had intended a full length laminated cross extending from the apex to the ground within a glazed diamond gridded frame. Particular grids were to be infilled with hexagonally shaped sashes and small triangular panels of coloured glass. The replacement of the rear wall design was intended to be temporary to alleviate costs and was to be eventually rebuilt as designed - a priority subordinated by the damages requiring repair following cyclone Winifred.
\nThe building was opened and the memorial tablet unveiled on 4 November 1961 by Rev AL McKay as Moderator of the newly formed Presbytery of Carpentaria (separated from the Presbytery of Townsville in August that year). The building as reported in the local press at the time was in the form of a traditional tent, constructed of fabricated steel 'A' frames with the main church floor being supported on the cross arm of the 'A' with the hall below. The exterior of the building was completely roofed from apex to ground with ribbed aluminium sheeting with three dormer windows on each side for light and ventilation. The seating capacity of the church was 200 with additional choir seating of 30 and the new hall was almost doubled in size.
\nAll materials used in the building were purchased locally or through local agents and all work carried out was by the local tradesmen. The church furnishings comprised 24 silky oak polished pews, maple communion table and chairs, polished lectern, marble baptismal font and a polished maple, plate glass sliding door hymn book press. Installed on the choir floor was a double manual Hammond electric organ with tone cabinet and book rests for the choir. Internally the building was lined with diagonally sheeted tulip oaks walls in a natural finish, polished Johnstone River hardwood floor in the church with blue carpeting the full length of the center aisle, and blue rubber flooring to all staircases.
\nThe chancel end of the church featured a patterned screen wall with green glass inserts and a softly illuminated gold finished cross surmounting a polished copper flower bowl. Natural light was provided by triangular side dormer windows positioned between the main trusses, triangular front windows surrounding a triangular brickwork panel and three triangular tinted fibreglass rooflights. By night it was lit by indirect fluorescent lights housed in pelmets along the side wall and spot lights in the lighting baffles at the apex.
\nThe hall was furnished with laminate covered kitchen cabinets and lit with fluorescent lighting. The minister's vestry was located at the north-west corner with polished table, chairs and telephone. An open side vestibule located below the three dormer windows to the northern side of the nave completes the ground floor and is suitable for entrance to the building in wet weather.
\nIn 1976-77, the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches amalgamated as the Uniting Church of Australasia. This formally changed the title of the church from Presbyterian to Uniting Church. On 1 February 1986, cyclone Winifred crossed the Queensland coast causing damage to the church and forcing the congregation to attend services at the East Innisfail State Primary School while the proceeds from fundraising were put towards church repairs. However, rather than repair the church, the cost of which was estimated as extremely high, the Uniting Church gave the building to the Johnstone Shire Council in exchange for a block of land in Scullen Avenue. Using the insurance money collected as a result of the cyclone damage, the congregation erected a new church on this site.
\nWhen the Uniting Church finally moved to their newly constructed church in Scullen Avenue, mobile items including the pews, cross and altar were moved also. The Oribin-designed church remained unused until 1988, when a separate Presbyterian congregation, which had separated from the Uniting Church, approached the Council to purchase it. Repairs to the church were undertaken by the new congregation through fund raising and voluntary labour, utilizing many sources from Cairns to Innisfail. The largest challenge was repairing the damage to the roof and internal ceiling sheeting incurred during cyclone Winifred in 1986.
\nAt this period the illuminated cross which had been located on the roof ridge almost 20 metres above the ground, was removed due to maintenance difficulties. Its whereabouts is unknown.
\nThe church was described in Austral Eden: 200 years of Australian architecture (1999) by Patrick Bingham Hall as the isoscelean masterpiece of an ever-resourceful maverick architect.
","criteria":"Located on the site of and incorporating the first Presbyterian Church in Innisfail, St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church demonstrates the pattern of development of the Presbyterian community in the region and the commitment to memorialize war dead.
|St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church at Innisfail has aesthetic significance as an outstanding and distinctive example of the use of local timbers and craftsmanship in a design reflecting the world-wide influence of the work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas on organic architecture. As a tall, A-frame building located on the crest of a ridge overlooking the Johnstone River, St Andrew's Presbyterian Church is a landmark in Innisfail.
|It also has special association with far north Queensland architect Eddie H Oribin as an outstanding and intact example of his innovative and highly inventive work.
|St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church is valued by the community for its townscape and memorial significance.
|It also has special association with far north Queensland architect Eddie H Oribin as an outstanding and intact example of his innovative and highly inventive work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | 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 is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | 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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19552,"place_ref":602431,"name":"St Saviour's Anglican Church (former)","alternate_name":"St Saviours Anglican Church (former) | St Saviour's Church | St Saviours Church","street_address":"26 Hynes Street","suburb":"SOUTH JOHNSTONE","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-09-24","description":"St Saviour's is a rendered masonry building with a corrugated iron roof. It is rectangular in plan with a separately-roofed front entrance porch and a northern rear vestry wing. It faces east onto Hynes Street, the main street of South Johnstone, and the symmetrically arranged façade, with its curved parapets to the front gable and front porch, and banks of windows with semi-circular arched fanlights, along the side elevations, makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape.
The front elevation has a six-paned timber framed casement window with semi-circular fanlight, either side of the centrally positioned front entrance porch, which is accessed from the north side via two concrete steps. The porch is enclosed with rendered masonry walls and has a flat corrugated iron roof concealed by a curved parapet, which mimics the front gable to the main building. There is a semi-circular arched window in the south wall of the porch, in-filled partly with glass and metal louvers and partly with a timber panel. The front wall of the porch until very recently had a grouped arched opening comprising three six-paned timber-framed casement windows with fanlights. The windows had been removed at the time of inspection, leaving a large open space in the wall with the central fanlight still in place. The porch gives access to the main entrance to the church, which consists of arched timber French doors
The side walls extend 15 metres from the front to the rear of the building, with three grouped arched openings consisting of three six-paned timber-framed casement windows, the central window in each group being taller than the others, and one six-paned timber-framed casement window to the rear, on each side wall. There are two single six-paned timber-framed casement windows in the rear wall. All windows, other than the louvre window in the porch, have semi-circular fanlights and textured glass. There are five buttresses along each wall.
A vestry wing extends 4 metres out from the northern wall at the rear of the building. There is a timber door on the eastern side of the wing, facing the street, which permits external access to the vestry. The doorway has a trim consisting of a painted red arch with a red cross above the door, inside the arch. There are three concrete steps, painted red, leading up to the door.
Externally the building is painted white with red trim on the external windowsills, fascia and on the trim below the top of the parapet. Gutters are painted green.
Internally the walls are painted light green with white window frames and white ceilings. The floors of the nave, sanctuary and vestry are of concrete. There is an angled wood-panelled ceiling in the nave. Three overhead fans are suspended from the nave ceiling.
The sanctuary is separated from the nave by a small step, a timber partition that drops from the ceiling, and folding timber doors. An arched opening leads through the northern wall to the vestry. A bench with a sink and laminate cupboard are against one wall of the vestry. This furniture is not significant. The western end of the vestry has been enclosed for a toilet.
No original church furniture remains inside the building.
The grounds consist of lawn with a gravel access driveway along the southern side of the building. A concrete path leads from the building to the gate. Two gate posts and the two external posts from the original front concrete fence remain in place and have embossed crosses. The remainder of the front fence has been replaced with cyclone wire fencing and a new gate, retaining the view of the church from the street. Neither the wire elements of the front fence nor the new green Colourbond fence along the rear and side boundary of the block have heritage significance.
","history":"St Saviour's Church, South Johnstone was completed in 1939 to serve Church of England (Anglican from 1981) parishioners at the southern end of the parish of Innisfail. Reputedly it was designed by Arthur Brown and constructed by local builder Mose Romano. Reverend John Feetham, Anglican Bishop of North Queensland, consecrated the church on Palm Sunday, 2 April 1939. It was used for Anglican religious service until 2003 and is currently privately owned.
South Johnstone is part of the Innisfail district (Innisfail was known as Geraldton until 1911). Thomas H Fitzgerald, who arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River to grow sugar cane on a 10,000 hectare land grant funded by the Catholic Bishop of Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy, founded the port of Geraldton in 1880. Others arrived soon after and a community was soon established with an economy firmly based on sugar production. In 1882 a sugar mill was built at Mourilyan followed by the establishment of the South Johnstone Mill in 1916.
Sugar cane farming was labour intensive, and as a result the region attracted a diverse racial mix of people including Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Italians, Malays, Japanese and Javanese. The prosperity of the sugar industry became dependent on the contract labour provided by Pacific Islanders in particular. The Chinese population, mainly failed miners from the Palmer River goldrush, established market gardens on the North and South Johnstone Rivers to supply goods for the workers in the sugar industry. The first Italian migrants arrived in North Queensland in December 1891 and were soon joined by friends and relatives to establish the strong Italian farming community that continues in the Innisfail region today.
The establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill in 1916 provided the stimulus for the development of the town of South Johnstone. At the time of opening, 100 farmers supplied cane for the first crush, and by 1930 this had grown to 300 farms supplying cane to the South Johnstone Mill.
The First World War accentuated the decline of the western mineral fields of North Queensland, and a large population shift took place to the expanding coastal sugar production areas such as the Johnstone, Tully, Mackay, Cairns and Babinda areas where miners were reportedly in demand as preferred workers for the sugar mills and farms . Census information shows a steady increase in the population of Johnstone Shire from 1901 (population 2,924) to 1925 (population 8,000)3 and 1934-5 when the population was reported at 12,777 . The population increase corresponds with a steady rise in sugar production in the Shire, particularly from 1924 .
A cyclone in 1918 destroyed many buildings in the South Johnstone area, after which buildings were constructed of solid materials such as brick and concrete where possible. The Innisfail district, including South Johsntone, prospered in the 1920s due to the success of the local sugar industry. Sugar growing and milling also supported the area through the worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s. Many of the public and commercial buildings constructed in the area during the 1920s and 1930s, including St Savour's Church at South Johnstone, reflect the fashionable architectural and decorative styles of the interwar period, such as Mediterranean, Spanish Mission and 'Art Deco'.
The Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas, an organisation of Anglican priests that had served the western mineral fields since its inception in Herberton in 1902, began to work in the developing coastal sugar areas after 1924 . Between 1926 and 1939 the Anglican Church, aided by the Bush Brotherhoods embarked on ambitious church building schemes in the developing sugar areas of North Queensland. Seven churches, including St Saviour's, were dedicated or consecrated during this time in coastal sugar towns such as Cairns, Tully, Innisfail, Mackay and South Johnstone .
The Brotherhood of St Barnabas was one of a group of Brotherhoods founded in 1896 to address the problems of providing pastoral care in the sparsely settled areas of Queensland. The Brothers were volunteers, recruited from England to work for five years in the developing colony of Queensland, travelling where they were needed, remaining unmarried for their time of service and receiving only board and lodging and an annual payment of £25 for personal items in return for their service in often difficult conditions .
South Johnstone Anglicans had been under the care of the priests serving the parishes of Cairns and Geraldton [later Innisfail], since the late 1890s. The first Church of England service in Geraldton was held in the Geraldton Division Board Hall in 1898, and was conducted by priests from the Parish of Cairns. In 1899 a timber church was constructed on the corner of Alice and Rankin Streets and a rectory was built on the corner of Alice and Owen Street in 1905. In 1900 the Parish of Geraldton was separated from the Parish of Cairns. The church was moved to a bigger site on Rankin Street in 1917, but this church, along with most of the town, was destroyed by the devastating cyclone of 1918. It was replaced by St Alban's church, on the corner of Rankin and Alice Streets, which was opened and dedicated on 5 October 1929.
Few Church of England rectors stayed longer than five years in the Parish of Innisfail and visiting priests such as the Bush Brotherhood were relied on heavily. From 1931 to 1933 members of the Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas (Rev. HA Norton, Rev. EW Gribble and Rev. CG Brown) served the Parish, then members of the Bush Brotherhood of St Lawrence (Rev. NA Townsend, Rev. R Campbell and Rev. Underhill) took over the responsibility until 1938. Church records indicate that the building of St Saviour's Church was due to the efforts and enthusiasm of Brother Ray Campbell in particular .
On 22 October 1935 the Church of England purchased a 1012m² block of land in South Johnstone for the erection of a daughter church to St Alban's. The site was purchased from Jose Maria for a cost of £65, and the concrete building was constructed in 1938-39 by Mose Romano at a cost of £1000. It is understood that the porch and vestry were added at a later date. The design, reputedly by Arthur Brown, was in Spanish Mission style.
The Bishop of North Queensland, Reverend John Olive Feetham, who ten years earlier had conducted a similar ceremony at St Alban's, dedicated St Saviour's Anglican Church on Palm Sunday, 2 April 1939. Half of the construction cost had been paid by this time. An active St Saviour's Ladies Guild subsequently raised funds through dances and other activities to help finance the remaining debt. Bequests also contributed to reduction of the debt.
Rev. EW Gribble returned as the incumbent rector in Innisfail parish from 1940 to 1945 after completing the required five years of voluntary service to the Brotherhood of St Barnabas .
St Saviour's provided a place of worship for Church of England parishioners at the southern end of the parish of Innisfail, with Holy Communion celebrated regularly on Sundays and weekdays. However, from the 1940s the population of South Johnstone began to decline. St Alban's Parish Notes of March 1946, records "notes from St Saviour's always seem to include accounts of farewell parties these days".
From the 1960s the building was shared as a place of worship by minority religions in the district. One parishioner remembers the Lutheran Church holding services (twice monthly) and Sunday school in St Saviour's for around 20 years from 1969. Pastor George Rosendale, from the Lutheran Mission of Hope Valley (now Hope Vale), was one of the Ministers to serve the Lutheran congregation in South Johnstone. He was one of the first Aboriginal Lutheran pastors.
The Pew Bulletin in June 2003 noted the cost and on-going maintenance issues of Parish properties and included an assessment of the Sunday ministry at St Saviour's. Because of these concerns the church was advertised for sale in July 2003 and subsequently was sold to a local business that currently uses the building as a training centre.
Internal furnishings, including the altar and pews, were removed when the church was sold in August 2003. Changes to the external fabric of the building, including removal of most of the front concrete fence, removal of the external crosses, removal and replacement of the front window architrave and the installation of air conditioning units, took place between the time of the sale and February 2004.
","criteria":"St Saviour's Anglican Church, erected in 1938-39 to service the then expanding population of the Innisfail district, is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement associated with the growth of North Queensland's sugar industry. In particular it illustrates how the growth of the North Queensland sugar industry during the interwar period generated prosperity in small communities such as South Johnstone, enabling parishioners to construct their places of worship in masonry rather than the more usual timber. It is important also as surviving evidence of the work of the priests of the Bush Brotherhoods of St Barnabas and St Lawrence, who served the Anglican parish of Innisfail from 1931-38.
|The substantial, rendered masonry church in the Spanish Mission style remains largely intact. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, and is illustrative of its era.
|As a rare and surviving church building constructed by the Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas and St Lawrence, the former St Saviour's Anglican Church, South Johnstone, has a special association with the work of the Bush Brotherhood, who were important in the Anglican Church's (Church of England) presence in remote areas of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | 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":19622,"place_ref":602499,"name":"Ninney Rise and John Busst Memorial","alternate_name":"John and Alison Busst's Residence","street_address":"405 Alexander Drive and Esplanade","suburb":"BINGIL BAY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Ninney Rise
Ninney Rise is located on a 1.98 hectare block just south of Ninney Point at Bingil Bay approximately 160 kilometres south of Cairns and 35 kilometres south of Innisfail. The property comprises a main residence, separate garage, and extensive grounds that include indigenous rain forest and a landscaped garden with swimming pool, walkways and driveways. The site is bounded by Clump Mountain National Park to the north, an esplanade and Bingil Bay to the east, and residential properties to the south and west.
The house is accessed via an ascending driveway which winds northward from Alexandra Drive through park-like grounds with some mature trees. Adjacent to the house and covering the northern third of the lot is lush tropical lowland rainforest. The house and grounds, including an in-ground pool at the southern end of the house, are only 20 metres from the foreshore of Bingil Bay, and provide views to the Coral Sea. About 50 metres to the west of the house there is a concrete-block, hipped-roof structure containing garage with work area and water closet. Neither the swimming pool nor the garage is considered to contribute to the cultural heritage significance of the place.
The core of the house is T-shaped in plan and is aligned roughly north-south with the long eastern side facing the ocean.
The house is low-set with a core of load-bearing brickwork walls supporting a concrete ring beam to which the timber-framed roof, clad in metal sheeting, is fixed. The hipped roof extends over the core to form the verandah roof, which is supported by a concrete verandah plate on steel posts fixed to the suspended concrete verandah floor slab. The verandah slab is supported at its edge by concrete piers. At each corner of the verandah a brick supporting walls extends diagonally from the corner of the brick house foundations to the outside edge of the verandah slab. Three sets of concrete steps lead from the verandah to the garden: two on the front (eastern side) and one on the western side. The verandah floor and stairs are finished with tiles and the verandah ceiling is lined with split bamboo.
The walls of the core are of cavity brick, laid on edge in stretcher bond with a header brick every two or three bricks. The brick work pattern is a variation of the Rat-trap or Chinese bond with the bricks laid on edge, and laid with two stretcher bricks then one header brick joining the two skins of the wall together making an approximately 50 millimetre cavity. The walls are painted on the outside and rendered on the inside. Many of the exterior window and door frames are of painted timber but some have been replaced with aluminium frames and flyscreens.
Midway along the western side of the core a single-storeyed, hipped-roofed wing joins at right angles. This has a skillion extension on the northern side. At the northern end of the core adjoining what was formerly the northern verandah, there is a two-storeyed, hipped roof structure, consisting of a ground floor former garage above which is a later addition.
The layout of the house comprises a living room at the southern end, shaded by verandah on three sides, with glassed doors opening to the verandahs on the east and west and a picture window to the south. A hallway extends north from the living room. Off this hall, facing the sea is a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, dining room, and kitchen. The dining room and kitchen also have doors opening to the east (front) verandah. The former northern verandah beyond the kitchen is now a breezeway and storage area, and a laundry has been created on the west verandah near the northern corner.
The rear (west) wing is accessed via a short hall at right angles to the main hallway. Opening off this secondary hall is a small bedroom to the south; a bathroom to the north; and a studio or bedroom to the west. This studio/bedroom has an ensuite bathroom accommodated under the skillion-roofed extension. The studio's main light comes from the south. From the secondary hall, between the two bathrooms, there is access to a small porch and beyond this to a brick-enclosed courtyard with an arched entry in the western wall.
With the exception of the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms, rooms have split bamboo ceilings with ceiling lights and fans set in patterned cane or bamboo panels. Architraves and skirtings are also of bamboo, as is the door into the studio. This use of split bamboo is a particularly striking feature of the house. A long strip of what appears to be batik is set into the studio ceiling. The interior timber-framed floor is lined generally with timber boards.
The northern two-storeyed section of the house consists of a large store room and garage on the ground floor with a living area, bedroom and bathroom on the upper level, accessed via an internal timber staircase. It is lined throughout with plasterboard.
Büsst Memorial
The Büsst Memorial is located on road reserve just below Ninney Point, close to the beach, approximately 200m north of John and Alison Büsst's former home, Ninney Rise. It comprises a small brass plaque attached to a natural rock formation, with the plaque facing the ocean. The inscription on the plaque reads:
IN MEMORY
Of
JOHN H BÜSST
DIED 5 - 4 - 1971
ARTIST AND LOVER OF BEAUTY
WHO FOUGHT
THAT MAN AND NATURE
MIGHT SURVIVE
","history":"Ninney Rise at picturesque Bingil Bay north of Mission Beach in northern Queensland was built in c1960 by artist and environmentalist John Horatio Büsst, using locally made bricks and locally sourced bamboo. He lived in the house with his wife Alison until his death in 1971. It was from here that Büsst master-minded a passionate, determined and ultimately successful campaign to protect Queensland's Great Barrier Reef and its tropical rainforests from development and mining pressures and exploitation.
Ninney Rise and its grounds are located on what had been part of a 160 acre (64.75ha) block first taken up in the name of Sidney B Cutten in 1884. The Cutten family were the area's first non-Indigenous settlers and became well known horticulturists. They built their family home, Bicton House, on the site now occupied by Ninney Rise, retaining it until the late 1930s.
Mission Beach, Bingil Bay, and Dunk and Bedarra Islands remained relatively undeveloped during the first half of the twentieth century, due to their isolation and frequent destructive cyclones. These factors ensured that the area retained much of its outstanding natural beauty which, along with idyllic accounts from Queensland author EJ Banfield, attracted artists and naturalists to the area including John Büsst and his sister Phyllis, who leased the south-eastern corner of Bedarra Island in 1940 and later purchased almost the whole island (apart from 15 acres (6ha) owned by artist Noel Wood).
John Büsst's interest in art, architecture and advocacy began in his youth, which he spent in Victoria. After attending Wesley College, he studied at Melbourne University. He then shared a house with Arthur Munday and future Prime Minister Harold Holt, before Büsst and Munday studied art with draughtsman-turned-painter Justus Jörgensen, who was influential in Melbourne art circles (according to information communicated in July 2005 by Sigmund Jörgensen, the son of Justus). In 1934 Büsst followed Jörgensen to Eltham, an outer suburb of Melbourne, which had attracted artists since the early 1900s, to help build the community of painters, sculptors, musicians and crafts-people later known as Montsalvat. Their architectural vision included the use of natural and local materials, such as pisé de terre and mud bricks. As one of Monsalvat's builders, Büsst acquired skills in creative and organic building. This artistic background and its associated philosophies influenced Büsst's building practices when he moved to north Queensland with his sister in 1940: his first house (since demolished) on Bedarra Island being constructed with hand-made mud bricks.
After 1947 Büsst subdivided his Bedarra Island land and sold 86 acres (34.8ha) of it, according to the book Discovering the Family Islands by JG Porter (1983: 43). Phyllis returned to Melbourne and John married Alison Shaw Fitchett who joined him on Bedarra in the early 1950s. In 1957 John and Alison Büsst sold their home on Bedarra Island and moved to Bingil Bay where they purchased Bicton House, the old Cutten family home, on just less than 10 acres (4ha) which extended to the beach with views over the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef. They also acquired portion 19V to the north, a 154 acre (62.3ha) block that included extensive areas of tropical lowland rainforest and the rocky headland known as Ninney Point. In the late 1950s or early 1960s the Büssts demolished Bicton House and erected a new residence on the site, according to Patricia Clare's The Struggle for the Great Barrier Reef (1971: 90).
John Büsst designed their new home to be strong enough to withstand cyclones, and utilised locally sourced materials. He employed a local builder to erect the shell of the building using bricks from the Silkwood Brickworks, and then used bamboo, an exotic that had been planted in the district in the nineteenth century, to create decorative ceiling features, architraves and fittings throughout the residence and to make furniture. Patricia Clare, who visited the Büsst's new home at Bingil Bay in the 1960s, later wrote:
"The white house stood on its own cliff, the rainforest behind it, and in front the satin shine of blue water stretching away to where the reefs of lime lay hidden. It was the traditional Australian country house, a core of rooms surrounded by wide verandahs, with a roof like a shady hat pulled down over the lot ... Büsst had built it ... [as] a fortress, built of brick and reinforced concrete to outlast the cyclones which periodically smashed into this coast... [explaining] ... 'I am not interested in making anything that won't last for a thousand years.' We stepped off the verandah ... into a room with ceiling lined in a sort of bamboo parquetry." (1971: 90.)
Büsst's artistic individualism and interest in the aesthetics of nature and in using nature in art and architecture gradually evolved into an awareness of the ecological reasons for conserving the natural world, and in the 1960s, to environmental activism.
During the late 1950s and 1960s, Queensland's coastal environments were under threat from rapid development stimulated by a boom in resource exploitation. Büsst observed large areas of rainforest being felled for sugar and banana cultivation and cattle, with subsequent wet season rain pouring topsoil out into the ocean. This resulted in pesticides, nutrients and phosphates being flushed out to sea and onto the Great Barrier Reef, which was also under pressure from unsustainable fishing practices and infestations of the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci).
Büsst was a founding member, Chairman and Secretary of the Committee for the Preservation of Tropical Rainforest. In 1965 he convinced the Federal government to engage rainforest scientists Dr Leonard Webb and Geoff Tracey to undertake the first systematic vegetation survey of north Queensland's rainforests. According to a Wet Tropics Management Authority 'Chronology of the Protection and Management of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area' (2007) and personal communication with Geoff Tracey, the 1966 survey resulted in: the first ever scientific reference to the international significance of Queensland's lowland rainforests; the first proposal for protection of the full range of North Queensland forests; and the first actual protection of lowland tropical Queensland rainforest. Webb and Tracey, who stayed with Büsst at his Bingil Bay house to do all their work on medicinal drugs from rainforest plants, were pioneers in Australian rainforest ecology and conservation. They promoted the conservation of lowland rainforest through the establishment of national parks and were joined by the Büssts in their campaign.
John Büsst's Great Barrier Reef campaign received much publicity and has been well documented in Australian ecology and conservation literature. Following public notice of a cane grower's intention to harvest coral from 84 acres (33.9ha) of supposedly dead reef (as a cheap source of agricultural lime) in 1967, Büsst lodged an objection and gathered evidence to prove that Ellison Reef was alive. The ensuing battle involved a number of influential environmentalist groups including the: Australian Conservation Foundation, Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society, the Queensland Littoral Society (renamed the Australian Marine Conservation Society), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (US). Büsst also circulated an objection (addressed to the Minister for Mines) to the Premier and the Ministers for Tourism and Conservation and the Director-General of the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau. He attracted wide press coverage for the case and enlisted the help of his long-time friend Prime Minister Harold Holt who, after being introduced to Bingil Bay by John Büsst, built a holiday home nearby. Six months after the hearings in the Innisfail Courthouse, Queensland Mines Minister Ron Camm rejected the mining application. This landmark case set a precedent for not mining the reef, brought the question of exploiting the Reef's resources into the public arena and served as a cornerstone for the conservation movement in Queensland.
Büsst's other major battle involved protecting the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling. By September 1967 the Queensland Government had leased 80,920 square miles (nearly 21 million hectares) of the Great Barrier Reef to companies that intended to drill there for oil. Büsst wrote to both Harold Holt and Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam proposing a moratorium on drilling on the reef and their support for a tropical marine science research centre for Townsville. The ensuing campaign was highly political, with Büsst and his supporters linking the leases to the State government through the shareholdings in Exoil No Liability held by a number of ministers as well as the Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke Petersen. The campaign broadened and pressed for the Commonwealth to wrest control of the reef from the state. Despite failing health, Büsst worked with trade unions and parliamentarians, notably Senator George Georges, to pressure the state Government and the oil companies. He planned, and widely publicized, the issue of a writ on the Queensland Government on the grounds that it had colluded with business to promote drilling. Public support grew and the 'Save the Reef' campaign attracted support from both sides of politics. The campaign became international as Büsst dispatched up to 4,000 letters around the globe. In March 1970 an oil tanker ran aground in the Torres Strait and an alarmed federal government upgraded the Inquiry to a Royal Commission into mining in the Great Barrier Reef. In the meantime legislation was drafted for sovereign control over underwater resources on the Continental Shelf.
During these hard-fought campaigns waged during the 1960s to conserve Queensland's Great Barrier Reef and its tropical rainforests, Büsst's house at Bingil Bay, Ninney Rise, became a centre for the movement. It hosted a range of influential visitors, including: politicians such as Harold Holt; noteworthy scientists such as marine biologist Dr Don McMichael, Japanese ornithologist Dr Jiro Kikkawa, rainforest ecologists Webb and Tracey, and United States marine collector and littoral zoologist Eddie Hegerl and his dive team; numerous conservation workers; and author Judith Wright. Wright, the inaugural president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland in 1962, was intimately involved in the activism and documented it in her book The Coral Battleground (West Melbourne, VIC: Thomas Nelson [Australia], 1977), which she dedicated to Büsst. In a letter to Wisenet in the 1990s Wright described Büsst as 'the man whose energy and devotion had first sparked off, and largely continued' the fight to save the reef. (Also refer to South of my days: a biography of Judith Wright, by Veronica Brady. Pymble, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1998.)
Büsst died in 1971 as he prepared his evidence for the Royal Commission. Wright composed the words for a memorial plaque at Bingil Bay overlooking the ocean just below Ninney Point, to commemorate his passionate commitment to conservation and nature. Four years later the Commonwealth took over management of the Great Barrier Reef with the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and the world's largest marine protected area.
Alison Büsst subdivided the land around Ninney Rise at Bingil Bay in 1975 and donated the northern rainforest headland around Ninney Point to the State as Lot 115 NPW 502. Four years later she sold the house to an American conservationist, Kate Tode.
Kate Tode and friend, Jean Rentoul, moved into Ninney Rise in October 1979. Mrs Tode conserved the Büssts' home and built an additional level above the garage at the northern end of the house. During the early 1980s she also arranged for the construction of a tool storage shed and driveway, the installation of a swimming pool, and re-tiled the bathrooms and kitchen. In 1982 Tode excised 3.8 hectares of the property, which she donated to the State. This was gazetted as National Park 1828 (now part of the Clump Mountain National Park) on 17 March 1984. At her death on 22 February 1990, Tode bequeathed the remainder of the property (including the house) to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Ninney Rise passed to her executors in late 1993 and was handed over to QPWS in 1995.
In the early 2000s QPWS proposed to sell the property, however conservation groups successfully objected to various Queensland Ministers on the grounds that the place retained significant cultural and natural heritage values. In 2008, QPWS undertook some repairs to the building, mainly the verandah ceilings, floor and foundations. John and Alison Büsst's former Bingil Bay residence remains the property of the people of Queensland.
","criteria":"Ninney Rise, its park-like grounds within a strikingly beautiful area of coastal lowland rainforest and the property's views to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area have great aesthetic significance. The outlook from the place takes in this marine environment, which is now recognised for the outstanding natural universal values that John Büsst fought to protect during the 1960s before these values had been widely recognised and appreciated.
|Ninney Rise is significant as the base from which the artist and environmentalist John Büsst organized the 'Save the Reef' and other important environmental campaigns during the 1960s and early 1970s. Set within the landscape being fought for, it was a meeting place for the campaigners and scientists involved with him in these efforts and became a focal point for all their struggles. These deeply contentious campaigns were supported by local and international scientists and aimed to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the area's tropical rainforests from development and mining pressures. As influential in the formation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and to the eventual declaration of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, these campaigns demonstrate the history of Queensland's environmental conservation movement with Büsst's home at Bingil Bay a key place associated with this activism.
|A home and a focal point for the early environmental conservation movement in Queensland, Ninney Rise is closely associated with the artist and eco-campaigner John Büsst who designed and built it in c1960. He worked intimately with the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Queensland Littoral Society (Australian Marine Conservation Society) and the Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society in the campaign to save the Great Barrier Reef. Büsst's environmental activism illustrated his transition from being an artist interested in the aesthetics of nature to a conservationist promoting the ecological reasons to conserve the natural environment. The inscription on the memorial to John Büsst near Ninney Point reflects his appreciation for art, nature and conservation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | 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":29312,"place_ref":602757,"name":"Innisfail Water Tower","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mourilyan Street","suburb":"EAST INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Located on the top of a hill in Mourilyan Road on the east side of the Johnstone River, the Innisfail Water Tower is a prominent feature on the skyline, its stylistic influences strongly reflecting the art deco character of a number of other buildings in Innisfail. Surrounded by palm trees and a low masonry fence with iron railing, the reinforced concrete structure comprises a circular tank supported on a central cylindrical tower and eight rectangular section columns.
The tank wall is embellished with a continuous parapet moulding and recessed panels. Beneath the tank, arched reinforced concrete splays span between the columns. The columns are accentuated at the springing line of the splays with two rows of rectangular moulding forming decorative capitals and with plinths at their base. The current paint scheme distinguishes various components of the exterior using pale yellow as a base colour detailed with a teal blue, terracotta orange and red.
Having originally incorporated a lookout, the Innisfail Water Tower still offers spectacular views over the region. Within the central tower, a half-turn stair with equal flights, constructed of concrete with a tubular metal handrail and balustrade, provides access to the tank. Three eight-light fixed metal-framed windows provide natural light to the stair landings. The concrete interior surfaces are unpainted.
The balustrade around the edge of the tank top is made of tubular metal and currently supports aerials for local telecommunications companies. A frame of similar materials covers a central circular opening where a ladder from below provides access to the dome. The concrete on the dome is largely unpainted.
","history":"The Innisfail Water Tower was built during 1933 and 1934 and was part of a significant infrastructure project in one of Queensland's most important sugar-growing regions. Designed by the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Queensland Lands Department, it is situated on Mellick's Hill at East Innisfail from where it is visible from all parts of the town making it an important landmark.
In the early 1930s Innisfail was the principal town in the Johnstone Shire and an important regional service centre in one of its major sugar-producing districts. Thomas Henry Fitzgerald is credited with the town's establishment, attracted to the area because of its potential for growing sugar. With financial backing from Brisbane, he selected his Innisfail Estate in June 1880 along the Johnstone River where the present town is located. News of Fitzgerald's venture attracted other sugar companies and within four years there were three mills operating in the district. Although Fitzgerald's venture was unsuccessful, his role was recognised when in 1883 a town was surveyed and named Geraldton. The name was changed to Innisfail in 1910.
By the turn of the century clearing for the town was continuing and new buildings were being erected, often in timber and iron to replace older ones. Lodges and societies were established, as were businesses including an aerated water factory, two bakers, a butcher and three new hotels. The waterfront was lined with wharves, two sawmills were established on the banks of the river and there was a ferry service across the South Johnstone River, it being the only effective way in and out of town.
While the sugar industry was fuelling the growth of the area, the greatest impact on Innisfail's landscape came from the major floods and cyclones of the period. A 1918 cyclone was particularly severe and destroyed most of the buildings in the town. A large proportion of the rebuilding which took place during the 1920s and 1930s - a period of prosperity - was done using reinforced concrete to prevent such levels of destruction during future cyclonic events.
Investigation and planning for a water supply scheme for Innisfail commenced in 1926. Up until this time the community relied on tank water and water vendors, and despite being one of the wettest towns in Australia in terms of rainfall, there were water shortages during the dry months of the year. In 1930 the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Queensland Lands Department explored options and prepared designs for a gravity scheme relying on supply from Fisher's Creek; however the Shire did not pursue funding for it until 1932 when they renewed their application. Councillor SK Page, Chairman of the Johnstone Shire Council and Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at the time, was a strong advocate for the scheme, which he argued would allow the formation of a fire brigade, improve public health, allow drains and streets to be flushed as well as providing water for households and public gardens. The local newspaper, the Johnstone River Advocate, reported in August of that year that a prolonged dry spell had resulted in motor traffic causing "... miniature desert storms on the dusty roads".
Council's new funding application for a water supply scheme resulted in the Queensland Treasurer approving a subsidy of £15,500 plus a loan of £30,750. This new application precipitated debate about the extent of the scheme, and alternative sources of water, dissent about these matters being aired at a public meeting at the end of 1932 where alternative schemes were recommended and a petition was started. These alternative schemes were based on the opinion of a former shire engineer and some people within the community who thought savings could be made by tapping into natural springs rather than pumping from the North Johnstone River, thereby reducing the size of the some of the piping. The need for a filtration plant was also questioned. The Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department formally responded to the criticisms of the scheme: confirming that the estimated daily consumption and cost of the scheme were comparable with water supply schemes elsewhere, and explaining that the Johnstone River would provide the most reliable water source.
The Innisfail Water Supply Scheme formed part of a State government town water supply program funded through the Lands Department's works for unemployment relief effort. The scheme was conditional on the use of local labour and materials and the transportation of materials by rail. The Minister for Lands reported on the success of the government's employment initiative, which had provided loans and subsidy of £210,673 to fourteen local authorities for the installation of town water supplies, and meant that in January 1934 there were 525 men directly employed. The initiative was also indirectly helping those firms supplying the materials needed for the construction of town water supply schemes.
The scheme for Innisfail differed from its proposed scheme of the 1920s in that it supplied a larger area and incorporated a filtration plant, which was considered best practice and important for preventing bacterial disease. It also comprised a low level pumping plant with two electrically powered vertical centrifugal pumps located at Stoter's farm on the Johnstone River, a filtration plant with two horizontal pumps located half a mile from the pumping plant, a 100,000 gallon water tower on Mellick's Hill at East Innisfail and a reticulation network to distribute water throughout the town. The scheme included provision of electricity to both the pumping and filtration plants from the Shire's power station.
By February 1933 tenders had been invited for construction of the Innisfail pumping station and reticulation network. These were just two components of the total system which for construction purposes was divided into a number of separate tenders. With the arrival of supervising engineer Mr Mulholland in late April, the ceremonial turning of the first sod to commence construction of the scheme was held on Saturday 22 April 1933 at Stoter's Farm. Councillor Page proclaimed in Johnstone River Advocate the commencement of the scheme as a positive step in the district's progress and possibly the biggest project the district had ever seen.
Work on the pumping station and laying pipes was already underway when eight tenders were received for contract No. 7, involving the construction of the 100,000 gallon reinforced concrete water tower at East Innisfail. Tenders ranged between £6898 and £5100 and were received from as far away as Bundaberg. In June 1933 the Van Leeuwen Bros were awarded the contract with a tender of £5186/16/-, having arrived in Innisfail from Baarn in Holland in 1918. They went on to become one of the most successful construction companies in the town, being responsible for construction of the National Bank, Hotel Grand Central, Queens Hotel, Bank of New South Wales, Commonwealth Bank, Shire Hall as well as the water tower.
Over the next thirteen months the progress of the water tower was regularly reported in the Johnstone River Advocate. In December 1933, a total of 19 men were employed, 14 full time and 5 part time. The columns had been concreted to a height of 14 feet (4.27 metres), the central tower to 21 feet (6.4 metres), with the 27 feet (8.23 metres) high second staging in preparation of a second lift of the columns. In January the columns were raised to a height of 29.5 feet (8.99 metres), the central tower to 35 feet (10.67 metres) and the pipes and valve pit in the tower had been set in place and tested. Despite being affected by heavy rain in April, the final concrete pour had been made to the top of the splay under the bottom of the tank, and the floor of the tank, consisting of 200 tons of concrete, was put down in a continuous pour that lasted for 19 hours. On 18 May 1934, 21 local men concreted the wall of the tank (13 feet [3.96 metres] high with a circumference of 134 feet [40.84 metres]) in a process that took 27 hours. By 6 June the dome of the tank was completed, again in one continuous pour. At 42 feet (12.8 metres) in diameter, it was one of the largest reinforced concrete domes in Queensland. All that was required to finish the job was coating the inside with bitumen and completing the parapet walls and lookout. It is not known if the current paint scheme matches the tower's original exterior finish.
During the early stages of construction there was some discussion about taking advantage of the visual prominence of the structure. Advertising and a town clock were suggested, however the Shire Council decided on a lookout, the guard rail for which was erected shortly after the dome on the tank was completed. The tower was painted but the Council decided it would be too costly to illuminate.
Although construction of the filtration plant had only just commenced, on Monday 27 August 1934, following testing of the system, the first property - Oroya Private Hospital in Rankin Street - was connected to the system. The availability of a reticulated water supply system also meant that the Volunteer Fire Brigade was also able to commence.
Construction of the filtration plant continued into 1935 as did connections to properties. It was not until 16 December that the water supply system was officially handed over to the Johnstone Shire Council. At which time there were 548 properties connected to it pumping 200,000 gallons per day supplying 2500 people.
The annual report of the Water Supply Branch of the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department for the year 1933-1934 reported that "...the Water Tower forms a dignified structure of imposing appearance overlooking the town. Throughout the construction of the scheme particular care had been taken to obtain concrete structures of pleasing appearance."
The Water Supply Branch was very active during the 1930s. In 1933-1934 they funded 41 projects, 22 of these being for town water supply schemes. During the 1930s, 15 of the schemes constructed included an elevated reinforced concrete water tower. Tanks were predominantly 60,000 or 100,000 to 120,000 gallons in size (272,765 litres or 454,609 litres to 545 531 litres), with Innisfail being the first 100,000 gallon (454,609 litres) tank as reported in the 1930s annual reports. The increase to this size appears to correspond to a transition to using supporting columns as well as the central tower. The tower at Emerald constructed in the early 1930s consisted of a concrete cylindrical tank on a central tower while the Gordonvale tower built in 1934 consisted of a cylindrical tank on columns; both were 60,000 gallon (272,765 litres) tanks. The towers at Gatton, Innisfail, Longreach and Ingham have both a central tower and surrounding columns. The taller of these towers also have bracing between the columns at mid height, which is not present on the Innisfail tower. The towers at Innisfail and Ingham have capitals on the columns, while the Innisfail tower also has decorative panels around its tank walls.
","criteria":"The Innisfail Water Tower is a good and intact example of a 1930s reinforced concrete water tower, one of 15 constructed in Queensland during that period. Designed by the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Lands Department, it incorporates both central tower and surrounding support columns which were used on larger towers from the mid-1930s. As well as being one of the first towers with both a central tower and columns, at the time of construction the dome top on the water tank was one of the largest in the state.
|Constructed in 1933-1934, the Innisfail Water Tower is associated with the early development of Innisfail's water supply infrastructure and is important in demonstrating the era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the north Queensland sugar industry during the 1920s and 1930s and the success of the Queensland government's town water supply programs funded by the Lands Department under the auspices of its unemployment relief scheme during the 1930s. Civic projects - including water supply schemes, shire and town halls, offices and chambers, community swimming pools, roads, bridges, and street and park beautification schemes - were undertaken throughout Queensland at this period as a result of the scheme, and as a group these places are important in illustrating: a particular historical period; the impact of State government initiatives to combat the economic depression; and design concepts popular at the time.
|The Innisfail Water Tower is a distinctive landmark visible from all parts of Innisfail. At the time of construction it was described as a dignified structure of imposing presence overlooking the town. Through the unemployment relief schemes, a conscious effort was made to produce concrete structures of pleasing appearance and the Innisfail Water Tower well illustrates the design elements, reflecting interwar Modernist concerns with functional simplicity, believed to impart this value.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30129,"place_ref":602755,"name":"Banfield Memorial Reserve and Grave","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"DUNK ISLAND","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Banfield's Grave is located within a clearing on a memorial museum reserve on Dunk Island, a small island which lies four kilometres off the east coast of far north Queensland opposite South Mission Beach. The grave and its cairn are situated on elevated ground approximately 500 metres north-east of the main resort complex on Brammo Bay, between the current resort staff quarters and Goor-tchur Creek (an Aboriginal place name translated as Trumpet Shell and listed in Last Leaves from Dunk Island).
Promoted as an historic attraction, the grave site is accessed from the resort via a narrow inclining concrete path with supporting directional signage. The path, lined with dense vegetation, leads to a rainforest clearing that is roughly square-shaped in plan with the grave, marked by a cairn, situated in the centre. An old mango tree (which is evident in early photographs) is located to the south of the western approach. Earlier approaches from the north and east are no longer accessible. Within the clearing are four large ceramic plant pots in each of the corners, and two timber seats, which are not of cultural heritage significance.
The cairn is constructed of random rubble and mortar in the shape of a rudimentary triangular prism with oyster and other shells embedded in the mortar. It is orientated east-west, with the apex inclined to the east. Two marble tablets are embedded in the eastern face.
The tablet memorialising Edmund Banfield is rectangular in shape with a convex upper edge and is inscribed with his name, birth place and date, death place and date, and a quote from Henry David Thoreau, as follows:
Edmund James Banfield
The Beachcomber
Born Liverpool, England, 4th September 1852
Died Dunk Island, 2nd June 1923
If a man does not keep pace with his companions
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears.
Beneath this a rectangular memorial tablet for Bertha Banfield is inscribed as follows:
Also Bertha Banfield
Dearly beloved and honoured wife
Born at Liverpool 19th JanY 1858
Died 6th August 1933
Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest
I will lodge ---- where thou diest, will I die and
There will I be buried.
Aligned with the eastern face of the cairn, and surrounding it on its north, south and west sides is a bed of white quartz pebbles contained within an edging of granite rocks. Adjacent to the eastern face of the cairn are two objects - a giant clam shell and a stone bowl. The bed and objects are not evident in early photographs and therefore not of cultural heritage significance.
Beyond the clearing in which the cairn is located, the reserve is covered with dense rainforest re-growth.
","history":"Situated on Dunk Island in far north Queensland, the grave was made in 1923 for the remains of the renowned author and naturalist, EJ or Ted Banfield. The cairn erected over it soon after and the memorial reserve established around it in 1971, honour the man popularly known as 'The Beachcomber' for his set of internationally successful books about its native flora and fauna. In the early twentieth century Banfield made a significant contribution to the conservation of not only Dunk Island but the entire Family Islands group situated off the coast from Mission Beach, of which it is a part, as well as popularising a particular kind of tourism in this part of the Great Barrier Reef that would later be termed eco-tourism.
Edmund (Ted) James Banfield was born on 4 September 1852 in Liverpool, England. His family emigrated to Australia in 1858 after his father found a job printing a news-sheet on the Ararat goldfields in Victoria. Ted Banfield eventually followed his father into journalism, but his particular passions were the study of nature and reading. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862), an American philosopher, essayist and poet whose most famous book was Walden or Life in the Woods published in 1854 and whose best known essay was On the Duty of Civil Disobedience first published in 1849. Thoreau became well known for his ideas about living close to nature and developing self-reliance within it, as well as those pertaining to the deficiencies of state power. Banfield later credited his reading of Thoreau's work with giving him the impetus to search out new experiences.
In 1882, after working at newspapers in Melbourne, Sydney and Penrith, Banfield accepted a job as sub-editor of the Townsville Daily Bulletin. This position bought him into contact with prominent north Queensland separationists such as Robert Philp, Thomas Hollis Hopkins and Thankful Willmett. He became a passionate supporter of the separation movement and dedicated much of his own time to writing supportive editorials. In 1884 he travelled to England to seek specialist medical treatment for an eye injured in childhood. To pay for his fare with the British-India Steam Navigation Company he wrote a series, entitled 'Homeward Bound', of seven articles promoting the northern sea route to England via the Torres Strait. While in England Banfield met Bertha Golding, who in 1886 emigrated to Townsville where they married.
Banfield continued his support of the north Queensland separation movement through the organisation of fund-raising functions; however during the 1890s his health deteriorated. To aid his recuperation, in 1896 the Banfields camped with friends on Dunk Island, the most northerly of the Family Islands group off Mission Beach. His renewed strength from this experience inspired him to look for a home among the Family Islands group, finally settling on Dunk Island where in September he leased a small area for 30 years at a nominal annual rental.
Diagnosed as tubercular and suffering nervous collapse, Banfield resigned from the North Queensland Newspaper Co. and he and his wife moved to the island on 28 September 1897, initially for a six month trial. They and a manservant were the only Europeans in residence on the island; camping in tents and later clearing a small portion of land for a prefabricated hut and a plantation.
With greatly improved health Banfield settled into improving the property, constructing a home using timber obtained from the Cutten Brother's timber mill at Bingil Bay on the mainland, and planting sprouting coconuts to form a long avenue of palms from the house down to the beach. On 4 January 1900 he applied for and was granted a selection of 320 acres on the western side of Dunk Island. When the selection was surveyed in mid-1899 improvements already comprised a house within a fenced yard, overlooking Brammo Bay to the north-west, and five other structures including a hut and fowl house. To the south of the house was a large swamp; to the north and surrounded by dense scrub there was a cleared cultivation area with coconut palms. In 1905 improvements to the property were valued at £390, and comprised: an iron-roofed, timber-clad house with wooden floors and detached kitchen with thatched roofed; a laundry clad and floored with hardwood; an iron-roofed storehouse with a hardwood frame and flooring; a stockyard; a goat and fowl shed; an extent of post and wire fencing and wire netting; 95 citrus trees; and six acres of land cleared for cultivation.
From early 1898 Banfield kept a daily record of his life on Dunk Island. He observed the rhythms of the island, paying particular attention to the indigenous flora and fauna and to the way the local Aborigines interacted with the environment. The Bandjin and Djiru people were the traditional owners of the Family Islands, and Banfield developed a close relationship with them, observing their customs and way of life, and learning from them about the island habitat. He also recorded the Aboriginal names for various features, places, flora and fauna on the island and commissioned a survey plan of the island marked with this nomenclature. His recording of these details was particularly timely, as the local Aboriginal population was removed to missions in the early twentieth century (possibly the Hull River Settlement before 1918, and then to Palm Island).
Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland from December 1920 to September 1925, took an interest in Banfield's work on Dunk Island. Nathan had a particular interest in the study of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as local history and the origin of place names in Queensland and was involved from 1922 in the planning, organisation and financing of the British Great Barrier Reef expedition of 1928 to 1929.
Banfield began to focus on protecting distinct bird habitats and this concern for birds prompted him to write to Robert Philp, premier of Queensland from 1899 to 1903 and from 1907 to 1908, and propose that the Family Islands be declared a sanctuary for them. He offered to support this proposal by assuming the role of Honorary Warden of the Isles in order to uphold the aims of the Native Birds Protection Act 1877, as discussed in the 1983 book A Different Drummer: The Story of EJ Banfield, Beachcomber of Dunk Island by M Noonan. The islands were proclaimed a Reserve for the Protection and Preservation of Native Birds on 10 May 1905, and Banfield was gazetted as Honorary Ranger on 24 June 1905.
Banfield maintained a steady writing schedule, documenting his experiences and observations, and selling publications to supplement his meagre income. In addition to articles promoting the separation movement, he also wrote Within the Barrier: Tourist Guide to the North Queensland Coast which was commissioned by the Queensland Government and published in 1907 by Thankful Willmett and Sons. In 1908 he published Confessions of a Beachcomber which proved to be his most successful work and was translated widely (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994). Part diary, anthropological study, natural science notebook and homage to the island, Confessions was dubbed a 'classic for naturalists' by Nature magazine and Banfield became widely known as 'The Beachcomber'. He wrote three other books that focused on Dunk Island: My Tropic Isle (London: Fisher Unwin, 1911); Tropic Days (New York: Brentano's, 1919) and Last Leaves from Dunk Island (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1925), which was published posthumously in 1925 and edited by naturalist Alexander Hugh Chisholm, publisher and author of many books on Australia's flora and fauna between 1922 and 1966. Last Leaves contained detailed observations about the impact of the devastating 1918 cyclone on the island and surrounding area. Many of the writing contained in these books had been published as articles in the Townsville Daily Bulletin, the North Queensland Register and the Queensland Geographical Journal.
At the time of his death due to appendicitis in 1923, at the age of 70, Banfield was a well known author, his passing being reported in The Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald. At the 1929 Australian Writers Festival, Chisholm noted that Banfield's work had 'won a chorus of posthumous approval from every part of the world'. His writings captured the imagination of artists, naturalists, recluses and tourists both in Australia and internationally - many of whom visited the island both during his lifetime (including the Australian Governor-General Ronald Munro Ferguson and his wife Lady Helen Munro Ferguson in 1920), and after his death.
Spenser McTaggart Hopkins, the son of separationist Thomas Hollis Hopkins, buried Banfield on his Dunk Island selection, on elevated ground north of the house, and erected a cairn over the grave. He also commissioned a marble tablet for the cairn, inscribed with a quote from Thoreau. Bertha Banfield lived for another ten years, spending her time between Townsville and Victoria. When she died in 1933, Spenser Hopkins placed her ashes by her husband's grave and added a second tablet to the cairn. The grave has remained intact on Dunk Island despite changing ownership and land use.
After Banfield's death his Dunk Island property was transferred to his wife Bertha Banfield, then in 1931 to her and Spenser McTaggart Hopkins as tenants in common, and after Berth's death, to Hopkins as sole owner. During this period a manager was installed to oversee the increasing number of tourists visiting the island. Photographs from the 1920s indicate that the land between the house and the beach had been cleared; tent accommodation had been erected in the grounds; and cattle were being run on the property.
In 1936 the non-alienated parts of Dunk Island or about two thirds of its area, which Banfield had worked passionately to protect, was proclaimed as a reserve for national park and is now part of the Family Islands National Park.
The remaining part of Dunk Island focussed on Brammo Bay to the north was developed as a tourist resort from the 1930s. Apparently a Captain Robert Brassey purchased the Banfield property in 1934 and by 1937 a number of small, prefabricated, low-set, fibrous-cement clad cottages had been constructed by the family on the grassed area between the Banfield house and the beach.
Close to the beach a modest, semi-enclosed timber structure with a hipped roof of corrugated iron served as the hotel bar. During World War II the Royal Australian Air Force used these facilities and also constructed an airstrip, a radar station and swing bridge on the property. Title to 107 acres (43ha) at the northern end of Banfield's selection was transferred to Hugo Brassey (son of Capt. R Brassey) in 1948. From 1946 he had leased out the resort. In 1957 title to the property was acquired by Gordon and Kathleen Stynes, who refurbished the resort and upgraded the airstrip. In 1963-64, Avis Rent-A-Car took over the resort and began marketing the island to international tourists. During the 1970s P&O Resorts, through their company Great Barrier Reef Hotels Pty, and Trans Australian Airlines (TAA, later to become Australian Airlines) purchased and redeveloped the resort. The only structure known to survive from Banfield's time on the island is the cairn marking his grave and that of his wife.
On 28 January 1971, an Order-in-Council gazetted a block of 47.9 perches (1212 sqm) of land surrounding Banfield's grave as a Reserve for Museum (Banfield Memorial) Purposes, with the University College of Townsville, later James Cook University, appointed as trustee. Mr Eric McIlree, Chairman and Managing Director of Avis Rent-a-Car had surrendered the land to the Crown, having had it surveyed in October 1967. Although various proposals to establish a museum as a tribute to Banfield's contribution to Australian literature and nature conservation were discussed, nothing has eventuated. The reserve remains under James Cook University trusteeship.
","criteria":"The memorial reserve and grave has a special association with EJ Banfield (1852-1923), who contributed significantly to our understanding of tropical environments and habitats between 1897 and 1923, as well as regarding the Aboriginal Traditional Owners of the Family Islands before they were removed to various Queensland mission settlements in the early twentieth century. His published accounts of Dunk Island's natural and cultural environment established his reputation as a committed naturalist who contributed to the development of early nature reserves in far north Queensland, and became texts celebrated by romantics, escapists, naturalists and scientists. His work inspired national and international naturalists, artists and authors to travel to north Queensland, particularly to the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, and to work or conduct further research in the area.
|Banfield Memorial Reserve and Grave is located on Dunk Island, which lies within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The place memorialises Queensland naturalist Edmund James Banfield (1852-1923), the first European settler on Dunk island and a nationally and internationally renowned author whose work to protect the indigenous flora and fauna of the Family Islands group (of which Dunk Island is a part) is important to the early evolution of nature conservation in Queensland. His contribution to what today may be called early 'eco tourism' is equally valuable. Both his grave (1923), marked by a cairn made of local stone, and the reserve around it (created in 1971), which was part of his former selection and now supports the rainforest habitat he so eloquently recorded in his renowned books, are memorials to Banfield and his drive to protect the natural environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30372,"place_ref":602759,"name":"See Poy House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"134 Edith Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-11-19","description":"See Poy House is located on the western outskirts of Innisfail's central business district on a large level block on the southern side of Edith Street, the main thoroughfare through Innisfail and part of the Bruce Highway. It is a substantial, high-set timber dwelling with multiple gables set in a garden with concrete-edged beds and lawn. The orientation of the house to match that of Edith Street places it at a slight angle to the side allotment boundaries and means its south-western corner stands on or near to the western side boundary.
See Poy House is clad in chamferboards and supported on timber stumps with timber lattice panels fixed between those on the perimeter. Its gabled and hipped roof, which accentuates its asymmetrical room layout, is clad in corrugated metal sheeting with eaves lined with timber battens. The gable ends feature flat sheet panels, timber brackets and timber batten trim.
On the northern (Edith Street) elevation, the entrance at the eastern end is emphasised with a small gable projecting from the corner of the L-shaped verandah. A recent timber and steel stair provides access to the entrance doors in the verandah's western wall, which comprise one and a half leaves with leadlight glass in the upper panels. (These stairs are not considered of cultural heritage significance.) The verandah openings above balustrade height have been filled with banks of leadlight casements, some six-light casements and fixed glazing. There is a centre-pivoting porthole window to the entrance hall and a bay window below the central gable. All leadlight in this elevation is of a matching design.
The western elevation largely comprises a verandah enclosed following a similar glazing scheme to that on the front elevation incorporating some louvre banks. The hipped roof has a louvred gablet at its apex, a scheme mirrored on the eastern elevation. The eastern elevation has a similar fenestration pattern determined by the enclosure of the verandah.
A transverse gable roof at the rear of the house extends across the southern elevation, with six-light casements under each gable end facing the east and west. Beneath a wide awning supported on timber battened brackets and attached to the southern wall is a five-light casement, louvres, a semi-enclosed stair with solid balustrade and the stove recess.
The house, the footprint of which is roughly square, has an asymmetrical layout. It contains a core of rooms comprising entry hall, lounge and dining rooms opening onto the now enclosed north-eastern verandah with the large main bedroom and a smaller second bedroom separated by a bathroom opening onto the enclosed western verandah or sleepout. A short hall separates the main living and dining room from the bedrooms. At the rear of the house, a kitchen occupies the south-east corner and is separated from the study in the south-west corner by the enclosed southern verandah that now serves as a long informal living area.
Throughout the house, walls and ceilings, including the raked verandah ceilings, are generally lined with painted v-jointed tongue and groove timber boards and clear finished skirtings and architraves, except in the formal living and dining rooms and the rear informal lounge where there is flat sheeting. The timber floors throughout have been clear finished. In wet areas vinyl tiles have been laid. The joinery of the core rooms is generally clear finished with early brass hardware, while the verandah joinery is painted.
In the formal living and dining rooms decorative features include picture rails, metal and glass pendant light fittings and an early chair and silk floor rug. A pair of early sliding leadlight doors separates these rooms. The leadlight pattern described above is carried through in the french doors opening into the eastern enclosed verandah; however leadlight casements opening from the dining room into this space and the rear informal living area are of a different design. The servery door from the kitchen is split horizontally into two sections: the top slides up into a wall cavity while the bottom swings open on a hinge. The top leaf of the door has a leadlight panel with a similar pattern to the other dining room windows.
The central hall opens off the living room and runs to the informal living room at the rear of the house providing access to the main and second bedrooms, the bathroom and the dining room along the way. The hall has a 3.5 metre high ceiling and various high-waisted three-panel doors, with timber fretwork fanlights above, open off it. A clear finished cupboard in the hall contains the original silky oak telephone stand.
The main bedroom has an early pendant light fitting and two early brass wall lights in the north-east corner. The bay window contains the original bench window seat and brass window hardware. The second bedroom mirrors this decoration scheme. The enclosed western verandah serves as a third bedroom. Eight-light french doors open onto this space from the main and second bedrooms.
The bathroom retains many original finishes including: green faux-marble panelling to the walls with black faux-marble jointing and skirting strips, and rubber tile flooring. Above the height of 2.4 metres painted timber boards line the walls and ceiling. The bathtub and washbasin are early fixtures, as are the towel rails. There appears to be a hidden cupboard between the bathroom and hallway.
The kitchen also retains many original features including: a sink with legs, sideboard, the serving hatch and stove recess, and the linoleum floor covering with its cardboard backing. Metal bracing for a hot water service is mounted high on a wall. Similar panelling to that used in the bathroom lines the stove recess and the splashback between the sink-top and window sill.
Flat sheeting lines the walls of the enclosed rear verandah to a height of about 2.5 metres above floor level. Above, the timber framing is exposed to the northern side while timber boarding lines the southern wall. Beyond this lounge is a narrow verandah with a skillion roof that incorporates a toilet, the rear stairs, and the kitchen pantry and stove recess.
A slab has been laid throughout the under-croft of the house which is used for storage. Round timber stumps support the house.
The front boundary is delineated by the original fence which has a rendered masonry base and posts with square caps. Attached to the posts are frames made from tubular steel that are filled with chainmesh.
The yard comprises various garden beds with concrete edging set within areas of lawn. These beds wrap around the front and both sides of the house and line the front fence, parallel to it. They are generally rectangular, one metre wide and four to six metres long. A curving concrete path leads from the gate on Edith Street to the landing of the front stairs, dividing the front yard roughly in half with the garden beds arranged symmetrically either side. Midway between the front fence and the house are two circular beds, two metres in diameter, either side of the path. In line with the rectangular beds set off from the western elevation is a circular one at the rear. Similar beds break up the area of lawn on the eastern side of the house. There is also a narrow rectangular bed located at the rear of the lot about 15 metres behind the south-east corner of the house. A recent swimming pool and entertaining area have been constructed at the rear of the house and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The original garage of the south-eastern corner of the house is timber-framed and has a gabled roof. Both its roof and walls are clad in corrugated sheet steel.
","history":"See Poy House, located on one of the main streets of Innisfail, is a substantial, high-set timber home constructed between 1929 and 1932 for Johnstone and Theodora (Dora) See Poy, second generation Chinese Australians from the prominent Innisfail-based See Poy family. The intactness of the house and its garden setting, and the association with the family's social and commercial history, are evidence of Chinese migrant prosperity and success in early twentieth century regional Queensland.
\nWith the discovery of gold on the Palmer River in 1872, Chinese men, including Taam Sze Pui (Tom See Poy, an anglicization of his name that he came to adopt), migrated to work on the Palmer goldfields, but many also established market gardens and set up businesses catering for new arrivals (Ref. 1). Chinese migrants moved between settlements and lived throughout the north on the Hodgkinson goldfields, on the Tablelands working in the timber industry and in the small settlements of Smithfield and Cairns in 1876. In 1880 the Johnstone River district was identified as suitable for agriculture and opened up for settlement and sugar production. Workers came from around the north, including Tom See Poy and other Chinese men. By 1886, the Chinese community at Geraldton (later Innisfail) had grown rapidly, almost matching the Chinese population at Cairns (the largest outside Brisbane). They worked in the sugar and banana industry, the latter rivalling sugar as the region's primary economic activity. Many Chinese men were involved in the banana industry, including Tom See Poy and Tam Sie whose early success with bananas saw them become leading businessmen investing in property and farming.
\nIn July 1883 Tom See Poy and two other Chinese men set up the Kam Who store at Mourilyan and then moved to Innisfail. A few years later, Tom bought out the others and was still operating the Innisfail store when it was damaged in the 1918 cyclone. Although Tom See Poy's initial business activities were modest, See Poy & Sons grew rapidly under the management of his children by the 1920s. Tom See Poy retired in 1925 and died the following year leaving an estate of £32 576. All but the youngest of his five children played a role in the store during their adult life. Eldest son Johnstone became the company director but his two sisters also had a significant role in the business as well.
\nSee Poy and Sons became the largest department store in north Queensland, with international connections. It catered for a wide clientele in Innisfail and beyond, selling everything from toys and shoes to groceries, furniture and cars. Under the directorship of Johnstone See Poy the business extended its floor area and increased its range of merchandise, and in 1929, purchased a car dealership (Ref. 2). The following year the firm embarked upon a significant upgrade of its existing timber store and built Innisfail's biggest department store (Ref. 3). The new two storey building was constructed of reinforced concrete - a popular modern material being increasingly used at the time because of its ability to withstand cyclones and floods. The new store was the equal of similar establishments in other parts of Queensland, and also of the Chinese Australian owned and operated emporia that dominated the skylines of Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shanghai between 1907 and 1931. [The emporia owned by the Chinese Australian Guo and Ma families are two examples of those operating in Hong Kong and China (Ref. 4).] At its peak See Poy & Sons was one of the foremost department stores in north Queensland (Ref. 5). The firm enjoyed significant customer loyalty and successfully withstood mercantile competition from the mail order service of McWhirters in Brisbane, from Penney's variety store, from other Innisfail stores, and from department stores situated in the large cities throughout north Queensland (Ref. 6). It continued to operate until the early 1980s, the whole See Poy family being honoured by the Queensland government in 1981 with a commemorative plaque for its contribution to retailing.
\nDuring the interwar period, which was one of business expansion for See Poy & Sons, members of the See Poy family also built private residences in close proximity to their department store which was located one block east of 134 Edith Street on the north-eastern corner of the intersection of Edith and Ernest Streets. Dora See Poy's family, the See Hoe's, lived on the western side of See Poy House. In addition, two adjoining houses were built for See Poy daughters on the opposite side of Edith Street from See Poy House. See Poy House is the only residence in this former enclave of family residences that survives intact. The adjacent See Hoe house and one of the daughter's houses has been demolished while the other daughter's house has been significantly altered. See Poy House is clear evidence of the firm's success and, with the demolition of the department store, it is now the last remaining intact structure that reflects the success of this major mercantile enterprise and its Chinese Australian directors.
\nSee Poy House was constructed sometime between 1929 and 1932, with Johnstone Tom See Poy being registered as owner of the land on 15 July 1929 (Ref. 7). It originally stood on at least 0.4 ha (1 acre) of land between Glady and Charles Streets. There were no fences separating numbers 132, 134 (Johnstone See Poy's residence) and 136 (where Dora's family, the See Hoe's, resided) on Edith Street.
\nThe street elevation of See Poy House was typical of an interwar Queenslander house; however its materials and special features reflect the wealth and standing of the family (Ref. 8). It was noticeably larger than a standard house at 670 m² in area and featured specially selected timbers (black bean, white hickory and silky oak), brass fittings and leadlight windows. During construction, rough sawn hardwood timber was transported from Maryborough and dressed on site. The use of mortised joints and anchor bolts cyclone-proofed the house. Leadlight windows and 12 ft (3.65 m) high ceilings were notable features of the interior of the house. It comprised a typical room format for a large interwar house being formal dining and lounge rooms, main bedroom, bathroom, second bedroom, study and kitchen. Verandahs were located on both sides and at the rear of the house. Balustrades were solid, other than decorative timber batten panels centred beneath timber bracket arches with side openings. The battening pattern used was consistent throughout: below arched openings and on the front stair balustrade in the infill latticework. The house cost between £1 200 and £2 000.
\nThe house was the venue for family and formal events. The formal dining room with its rectangular table was generally reserved for entertaining guests such as service personnel during World War 2. For family meals, the See Poy and See Hoe families usually ate on the rear verandah.
\nThe symmetrical formal garden with concrete edged garden beds was created by Johnstone See Poy who was an enthusiastic gardener, and was also the setting for many family and community activities that gave it a profile in the community. Most of the See Poy residences on Edith Street became venues for community functions and social events, which reflected the family's standing within the community and their inclusive and multicultural approach to staffing See Poy & Sons. Their success and high social profile enabled them to play a leadership role within the Innisfail community and traverse racial boundaries. With Johnstone at the helm of See Poy & Sons, the firm participated in local sporting activities and events. This sustained sporting interest serves as yet another illustration of the family's involvement with mainstream Queensland community life. The firm sponsored its own cricket and tennis teams to compete against staff teams from other firms in the north (Ref. 9). Although the firm did not field a football team, it donated a trophy, known as the See Poy Cup, for senior rugby league matches (Ref. 10). Keeping pace with many businessmen, Johnstone and his brother-in-law, William Sue Yek, became members of the local golf club (Ref. 11).
\nJohnstone See Poy was a member of the Rotary Club and his wife Dora was admitted to the Inner Wheel (a subdivision for the wives of Rotary members) according to information from an interview with descendant, Herbert Sue Yek. Consequently, their home became a venue for gatherings of the members of the latter group. In 1931, Johnstone and Dora's only child died accidentally. Although they did not become parents again, they made a commitment to host the Baby Show for the local Anglican Church according to another descendant Tiger See Hoe. For many years, 134 Edith Street was the venue for this annual event. Innisfail's children gave performances within the grounds of the house entertaining a large assembled audience and presumably mothers exhibited their babies. This was a major community and charity event providing members of the Innisfail community with a further means of relating to the See Poy family.
\nThe matriarchs of the Sue Yek and Quong Chong families were See Poy daughters and their homes stood directly opposite 134 Edith Street, forming what could be described as a See Poy enclave of beautiful houses. From the 1930s onwards, the homes of the Sue Yek and Quong Chong families were frequent scenes of hospitality and conviviality for the wider community. The Sue Yek family, for instance, played host to the staff, family and friends of the See Poy Staff Club (Ref. 12). The Quong Chong family provided musical entertainment for the Chinese Consul-General during a formal visit to north Queensland, whilst the See Poy men held formal discussions with the Chinese delegation (Ref. 13). The community activities of the See Poy family continued for several decades. Johnstone's brother, Herbert See Poy's dedication to advancing the cause of the Warrina Home for the Aged was recognised with an MBE in 1980 (Ref. 14).
\nThe See Poy family made some alterations to the house over time, such as lowering some ceilings and enclosing some verandahs with windows. Dora See Poy carried out minor alterations to the living room, including the removal of a section of decorative arch.
\nFollowing Johnstone's death, ownership of the house in Edith Street transferred to Dora in September 1984. Following her death in 2001 it passed out of the ownership of the See Poy family.
\nThe demolition of the See Poy & Sons department store and the alteration and demolition of the other family houses leaves See Poy House as the last remaining intact structure that reflects the success of this major mercantile enterprise and its Chinese Australian directors.
\nReferences
\n1. May C. See Poy, Tom (1853?-1926). In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988;562-563. [Online version viewed August 2010 at <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110574b.htm>.]
\n2. Johnstone River Advocate (JRA). 7 June 1929.
\n3. JRA, 7 February 1930.
\n4. Fitzgerald J. Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia. Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2007;156.
\n5. JRA. 7 February 1930.
\n6. Cairns Post. 23 April 1994;8.
\n7. Innisfail Advocate. 12 April 2007;7.
\n8. Evans I & The National Trust of Queensland. The Queensland House: History and Conservation. Mullumbimby, NSW: Flannel Flower Press, 2001.
\n9. JRA, 25 September 1928 & 23 April 1929.
\n10. JRA, 28 June 1929.
\n11. JRA, 28 June 1929.
\n12. JRA, 23 May 1930.
\n13. JRA, 26 May 1931.
\n14. JRA, 26 May 1931.
\nFurther Reading
\nRains, K. J., 2004, 'Intersections: The Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese Social Landscape of Cooktown, 1873-1935,' PhD thesis, School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia.
\nRobb, S., 2007, Chinese Settlement in Far North Queensland, unpublished thematic history report prepared for the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency's State Wide Survey.
\nWong Hoy, K., 2006, 'Becoming British subjects 1879-1903: Chinese in north Queensland,' MA thesis, Asian Studies Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.
","criteria":"See Poy House (1932), the home of Johnstone See Poy, who for more than 50 years was the general manager of Queensland's only Chinese Australian owned and operated large department store, See Poy & Sons, is important in demonstrating an aspect of the pattern of Queensland's Chinese migration history. It illustrates the way in which early Chinese migrants achieved monetary success, social standing and integration with the wider community, and contributes significantly to the understanding of a prominent Chinese Australian business family's way of life in regional Queensland.
|See Poy House has a special association with the See Poy family, particularly Johnstone See Poy, general manager of the firm See Poy & Sons, and his wife Theodora. The See Poys were an important Chinese Australian family in north Queensland history, operating See Poy & Sons, a major department store, for approximately 100 years following its establishment by Taam Sze Pui (Tom See Poy). They were important members of the north Queensland community, involved in many social, sporting and philanthropic activities, many of which Johnstone and his wife hosted in this house during the more than 50 years they resided there.
See Poy House - a symbol of the family's success and its desire to participate in the Innisfail community - is the last remaining link to the prominent role these Chinese Australians played in the social and economic development of north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} ]}