Located in the south-west corner of the site, the St Lawrence Police Station and former Courthouse is a single story, 'T-shaped' timber building, with an exterior cross-braced frame supported on low stumps. The gable roof is clad with corrugated iron. The building is surrounded on the south, west and east by a verandah with timber posts, under a separate roof, clad with corrugated iron. The verandah to the north (rear) of the building, has been partially enclosed on the north-western side, to accommodate toilet facilities. This section of the building has a skillion roof clad with corrugated iron. This enclosure is part of the 1934 additions. The verandah has also been partially enclosed, with vertically jointed timber, on the north-eastern side to accommodate toilet facilities. This enclosure is later in date, and the framework is clad with chamferboards.
A set of timber stairs lead to the paired, panelled, timber doors. The entrance is centrally located under a gabled roof with a decorative, timber finial. A circular ventilator is located high in the southern façade. Narrow windows operating on pivots are located on either side of the entrance door and along the western and eastern sides of the building. Forming part of the transverse section of the building, on the eastern side, is located a set of long, rectangular casement windows, protected by a sunhood with timber brackets, clad with corrugated iron. A timber door at the northern end of the verandah on the eastern side, leads to the office.
Internally, the entrance doors lead to the former courtroom. The room is horizontally lined with timber on the western, eastern and southern side of the room. The northern side is vertically lined with timber. The central section of the timber ceiling is flat and the sides and ends are angled. A vent with decorative fretwork is located in the ceiling. The Magistrate's bench is located at the northern end of the room. Timber doors are located on either side of the bench. These lead into two rooms forming the transverse section of the 'T'. One leads to the office and the second to the interview room. Court records and the original straightjacket, issued for the restraint of violent prisoners, are located in storage in the former courtroom.
The office, located at the northern end of the building, is lined with timber on the western and eastern and southern sides and with chamferboards on the northern side. A door in the northern wall leads to a small office which forms part of the enclosed rear (northern) verandah. A second door leads to the open verandah. A timber door at the western end of the rear verandah leads to a small office, forming part of the original section of the building, which is used as an interview room. This room is lined with timber and there is a breezeway located in the eastern wall. A timber, panelled door in the southern wall opens to the former courtroom.
The cell block, a single storey timber building, set on low timber stumps, with a hipped roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron, is located almost in the centre of the property, to the north-east of the police station and former courthouse. On the eastern side of the cell, timber stairs lead to the verandah and cell doors. Part of the verandah, at the northern end, has been enclosed to accommodate shower facilities. Apart from a doorway, the verandah is surrounded by a metal grill. Rectangular openings with metal grills and mesh wire are located high in each elevation. Two cells are located within the block, at the north and south ends of the building, each measuring a few metres square. In both blocks, to one corner, is located a porcelain toilet set in concrete. The cells are accessed via a heavy, timber door with iron hinges and bolts, and a square opening with an iron opening and door latch.
An incinerator with the words 'CP ENG MK1' embossed on the body is located to the north of the police station and former courthouse building. Two mango trees are located in the north-west corner of the property. A number of other mature trees and plantings are located around the site. The property is surrounded by a modern chain wire fence.
","history":"The St Lawrence police station and courthouse, constructed in 1878, the second to be built on the site and the cell block, constructed by 1880, are situated in a prominent position overlooking the St Lawrence River, located on the site of a government reserve which has served the community as part of the justice system since 1863. Additions to the police station and former courthouse in 1934 included the enclosing of verandah in the north-west corner to build a bathroom. Other additions included the construction of earth closets and a cell block in the grounds. The buildings have had numerous repairs, including painting and restumping and minor renovations over the years.
European settlement began in the St Lawrence area by 1860, when John Arthur Macartney formed Waverley Station. The St Lawrence area had a strong connection with the pastoral industry in the 19th century. McCartney took up land at the head of Broadsound and Waverley in 1860 and used the banks of the St Lawrence Creek to land his supplies. Later that year a boiling down works for tallow was established. In 1861 the Rockhampton Port Master recommended the site for a port, and government buildings were soon constructed. These included a Telegraph Office, Police Station and Court House.
During the first years of settlement in what was later to become the State of Queensland, the police system was executed through the duties of a Police Magistrate. However, this proved to be inadequate and following the appointment of the first Governor of Queensland, Governor Bowen, in 1859, an organised force was established by appointing an Inspector General to be in charge of both ordinary and Native Police. In 1863 and 1864, the police system again changed form, following the appointment of the first Commissioner of Police, David Thompson Seymour. He introduced a new system based on the Victorian model comprising Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors, Sergeants, Constables and a Detective Force. In ensuing years, the structure of the Force underwent a number of additional modifications and by 1924 Queensland had the highest State ratio of policemen to residents in Australia, with one officer to every 725 persons.
By 1863 a government reserve of four acres had been set aside in St Lawrence in the north-west corner of the surveyed area, to the south of the St Lawrence Creek. This reserve was titled 'Custom House'. The first court house in St Lawrence, a single storey slab building with a shingle roof was constructed by 1866. In 1869 there were two government buildings in the town, a 'public house', a store and '8 or 9 huts'. This courthouse was repaired following cyclones in 1875 and 1877. By 1878, a new, timber building with a shingle roof was commenced by contractor Thomas Watson. It was completed by the end of 1878 for a cost of £520/18. The design, prepared by the Office of the Government Architect, was similar to the Port Douglas courthouse, constructed in 1879.
By June 1880, the Police Inspector reported that the '...Barracks consist of the old Court House and the original Barracks and Cells...' The former portion was occupied by the Sergeant and the latter by the Constable. At this time, there were two new cells under construction. The Inspector of Police reported that the Barracks were in an unsatisfactory state, the result of '...keeping a number of pigs, goats and poultry on the premises.' By October 1881, in compliance with the Inspector's instructions, William Tagg's premises at St Lawrence were rented to serve as a police barracks for twelve months at a cost of £25 per annum. By September 1882, the Constable at St Lawrence requested instructions regarding a renewal of rental terms. In October 1882, Tagg offered to sell the premises to the police, however, following an inspection, it was decided to erect a new police barracks on the site of the reserve, which were occupied by the courthouse, post and telegraph office and sergeants quarters. The Constable in Charge proposed that the slabs from the buildings to be pulled down to make way for the new police barracks, not be sold off, but reused to erect stables, a saddle room, a cart shed and other out offices.
In January 1914, Herbert Payne was awarded the tender to remove eight decayed stumps from under the court house and replace them with solid blocks. The decayed floor boards at the 'bottom front verandah' were also to be replaced and the building painted. The cost totalled £45.
In January 1919, the Commissioner of Railways informed the Police Department that a camp was to be established at St Lawrence for the construction of the North Coast Railway. The Commissioner thought that the town did not have a police presence, however, he was informed that there were two constables stationed at St Lawrence.
In 1921, it was proposed to build new accommodation for the single constable, as the old slab quarters, constructed c1870, were considered uninhabitable. Funding was not granted for this, and so the following year, the constable was directed to use one of the rooms at the rear of the court house. The Constable in Charge, who was also Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions, was already using the building for clerical work and 'indoor' police work. A toilet for prisoners was added to the rear verandah in 1935 when new stables and forage room was also built. The single constable's quarters was pulled down in 1923 and the slabs used to construct a harness room.
The arrival of the railway in 1921 provided an important economic boost to the area, as well as a transport link. St Lawrence was a meal stop for rail passengers and the refreshments rooms at one time employed 22 women. Drivers and staff also changed at St Lawrence. The town itself reached its peak in the late 1940s with a population of 3000.
The police barracks was demolished in the late 1980s and a new building was constructed. The railway station closed in 1992 and the last court was held in St Lawrence in that year. The police station and former courthouse and the cell block continue to be utilised by the police department.
","criteria":"Forming part of the old town of St Lawrence, the site of the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse (1878) and cell block, constructed by 1880, is significant as it reflects the history and development of St Lawrence and the surrounding area and its role as a regional judicial precinct in the early years following Separation.
|Few early timber police station and courthouse buildings survive and the St Lawrence police station and courthouse building is significant for its rarity as one of the earliest, intact, extant examples of this type of building.
|As a single-storey, timber, government building, with drawings prepared by the Office of the Colonial Architect, the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse is significant as an example of a typical type of design and construction.
The cell block is significant as an extant example of the typical timber cell blocks constructed by the Department of Public Works in the late 19th century.
|The St Lawrence police station and former courthouse has aesthetic significance due to the simplicity and symmetry of design of the building, and for its contribution to the MaCartney Street streetscape and the St Lawrence townscape.
|The site of a police reserve since 1863, the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse is significant for its long association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in the area. The building was the focus for a wide range of community services and this, together with the tradition of constables-in-charge, ensured that the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse provided an important community focus in the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | 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 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 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":15926,"place_ref":601154,"name":"Nebo Hotel","alternate_name":"Fort Cooper Hotel","street_address":"2 Reynolds Street","suburb":"NEBO","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Nebo Hotel is situated at the corner of two major streets in the town, Reynolds and Water Streets, overlooking Nebo Creek. The hotel comprises of two adjacent buildings. The older, larger corner building with bar at ground floor and guest bedrooms on first floor. The adjoining building houses the dining room and kitchen on its lower level with management accommodation over.
The main building is two storey, timber framed with green painted corrugated iron to the hip roof with skillion veranda awnings on three sides. External walls are clad with painted vertical corrugated iron. The former front section of the timber deck veranda has been removed, the lower level open rail balustrade replaced with weatherboards and steps added to access the bar. At the upper level the cross braced open balustrade remains as does the decorative fascia boards. Timber posts support the timber deck veranda which provides access to the tongue and groove-lined guest bedrooms through individual French doors. Behind the public bar stands an old hardwood insulated coolroom which is claimed to produce excellent temperature beer.
The adjoining building, situated to the east of the main hotel, is two storeyed with a painted corrugated galvanised iron hip roof. Originally single storeyed it is externally clad with painted vertical corrugated iron on the lower storey and ripple iron to the upper. The dining room has timber double hung windows and is lined with an early fibro sheeting. A skillion roofed veranda to the first floor level on the street elevation has been enclosed with flat fibro cladding. The living quarters behind it have recently been lined internally.
","history":"The Nebo Hotel, believed to be the second hotel on the site, was constructed in 1886 for Jack Davis who owned the hotel until 1906.
Ludwig Leichhardt first explored the area around Nebo in 1845. By the early 1860s pastoral expansion was pushing up the coast from Rockhampton towards land in the Mitchell and Kennedy districts and beyond. Land at a crossing on the Nebo Creek where good water and grass were available became a popular overnight camp for teamsters and other travellers. In 1862, Ben Reynolds, one of a party who crossed the Eton Range with a bullock dray, established a hotel on the banks of the creek. A licence for this hotel was granted in early 1863. Two years later the area around it was surveyed by TH Fitzgerald and gazetted as a township. It was called Fort Cooper after the hill that is a prominent landscape feature in the area and the hotel was named the Fort Cooper Hotel. The local people, however, had already begun to call the settlement Nebo, after the creek on which it was based.
Fort Cooper was intended as a service centre for the surrounding pastoral area. From the 1870s it also served a number of copper mines and the Mount Britton gold mine from the 1880s. Fort Cooper quickly prospered gaining a second hotel, a telegraph office and a Court of Petty Sessions. However, the population of the area dropped somewhat in the late 1860s as stations replaced sheep with cattle, which did not require as many hands to care for them. In 1886, Jack Davis, who also built a residence and store across from the hotel six years later, built the current hotel and retained the name.
In 1906, Davis sold the hotel to Jim Perry, who later sold it to a Mr Marshall. The place was again sold in 1918 when the German owner found that prejudice affected his trade.
In 1920 the license was acquired by AW Maclean. A number of his 13 children were born at the hotel and it has been a long association with the Maclean family. Maclean had a great interest in horse racing and for most of the time that he owned the hotel he was President of the Nebo Jockey Club. The hotel catered for race meetings and there were once stables and a stockyard on the grounds.
The adjoining two storey building that forms part of the hotel and linked by the hotel's eastern verandas, was built in two stages. The ground floor was constructed following the First World War as a billiard room. The upper storey was added in 1932 as private living quarters.
In 1939 Maclean sold the hotel owing to ill health. It was purchased by Tom Wright and Herb Davidson and was operated by various licensees. In 1948, local usage concerning the name of the town finally prevailed and both the township and hotel were renamed Nebo. In 1962 Jim Maclean leased the hotel and purchased it in 1964. His daughter took over the running of the hotel in 1991. The property has been sold twice since 1994.
Changes have been minor. The most noticeable exterior change has been the removal of the timber veranda deck to the Reynolds Street side and the installation of low steps to provide access to the bar and the side verandas. The timber rail balustrade was replaced on the ground floor by horizontal weatherboards. In appearance the hotel is both typical of its era and an increasing rarity.
","criteria":"Nebo Hotel, erected in 1886, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history standing, as it does, close to a creek crossing on what was a track utilised by explorers, pastoralists and settlers seeking land in the Mitchell and Kennedy Regions of north Queensland. Further, the hotel remains as an extant reminder of the time when Nebo was a service centre for the pastoral and mining areas surrounding the town.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Nebo Hotel is significant as a relatively intact example of a nineteenth century timber and iron vernacular hotel which is representative of its type and era of construction.
|(Criterion under review)
","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":15938,"place_ref":601173,"name":"Meatworks and Wharf Site (former)","alternate_name":"Former Newport Meatworks Company | Former Broadsound Packing Co Ltd | Former Broadsound Meat Company","street_address":"Settlement Road","suburb":"ST LAWRENCE","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"The remains of the former St Lawrence Meatworks and Wharf site is located on several properties off Settlement Road, approximately eight kilometres south-east of the town of St Lawrence. Despite vegetation growth, considerable evidence for site is still visible above ground.
The main site includes three boilers, two of which are located to the west of the property and a third boiler located approximately ten metres to the east of the first two boilers. Situated around two of the boilers is brick rubble remains, providing evidence for the fireboxes which once surrounded the boilers. The third boiler, to the east, does not have any brick rubble remains surrounding it, indicating that it may have been moved from its original position.
Directly to the west of the boilers is a brick lined, sunken area with remnant concrete flooring. It is approximately nine metres square. The remains of a wall rendered brick wall are located in sections around the area and rise to a height of approximately one metre. An opening is located in the remnant wall in the north-west corner of the area. Also in this section is located an a metal grill. It is not clear if this grill is associated with some sort of heating element in the meatworks production line or if its purpose was more closely related to a cattle grill, and was to keep the animals within the area.
Approximately ten metres north of the brick wall and concrete floor area is the remains of another facebrick structure. This structure has three walls extant [north, south and west] and may have had at least two rooms, as the remains of what appear to be the brick base of an internal wall and a timber framed doorway, are evident. To the north of the facebrick building is located the remains of another structure with a brick base and a concrete floor area. The site has other brick, metal and timber remains scattered throughout. It is also likely that further evidence of the meatworks exist underground.
On another area of land, to the north-east of the main site, the remains of a donkey boiler and a mine shaft are extant. During the time of the meatworks, a tram ran from the site across to the main meatworks site. While no physical evidence of the tramline remains, what is apparent is an earthed, built-up area, indicating the position of the line. This is located to the west of the shaft and boiler and curves around, running south-west, disappearing before it reaches Settlement Road.
The former wharf site, incorporating timber posts, and much of the tramway, which joins the meatworks, are situated on tidal flats, forming part of the Newport Conservation Park. Other remains include further evidence of the tram line such as timber sleeper and metal remains. Also extant in the Newport Conservation Park is evidence of timber fording of Bund Creek and remains of what appears to be a corduroy road.
","history":"The former meatworks and wharf site is thought to be established in the 1860s as a boiling down works. By 1893, the meatworks had been established and remained in operation until around 1911.
The St Lawrence area was settled by 1860,when Macartney formed Waverley Station. Around the same time, John Mackay was travelling in the area.
The meatworks was one of the largest projects undertaken in the history of St Lawrence. It has been suggested that the meatworks owed its origin to the fact that a boiling down works had been established about four miles from the town near the wharf on Waverley Creek. The purpose of the boiling down process was to recover the fat or tallow from cattle which were usually considered below standard for putting through the butcher shop. The demand for tallow would have been much greater in that period of Australian history, for tallow was very much in demand for use in candles and for preserving harnesses.
Boiling down works have been an important industry throughout Queensland during a number of periods. The establishment of such works usually coincided with drought and low prices for wool and beef. Boiling-down factories were started in Brisbane in 1843 by John 'Tinker' Campbell and in Ipswich in 1847. By 1851, two works were located in Ipswich. Other boiling down works being established on the Darling Downs during the 1860s, included Campbell's operation on Westbrook Homestead, the depression of the time being the predominant reason behind the establishment of such industries. Consequently, reasons behind the establishment of the boiling down works at St Lawrence may also have been due to the effects of the depression.
By 1865 the Government was in the process of extending the telegraph line between St Lawrence and Bowen, and to the Gulf of Carpentaria. In 1866, the Government proposed an impost on wool, tallow and hides. The Legislative Council considered the resolution to present the Governor with a Bill to be introduced to the Legislative Council to impose an export duty on one halfpenny per pound on wool, one pound per ton on tallow, three pence each on hides and one halfpenny each of sheepskins. The House was divided and the motion was not passed.
In 1866, Septimus Nash Spong designed a wharf at St Lawrence. Spong received a Queensland government post in 1861, as clerk of works in the Colonial Architect's Office where he replaced Joseph Sherwin. Spong later moved to Rockhampton where he practiced as an architect, building and land surveyor from 1865 until 1874. As with its Canadian namesake, which has the fastest tide in the world, the basin at St Lawrence has a rapid and deep tidal surge and so was dangerous as a port. In 1873, as a cyclone and the storage of copper ore damaged the old wharf, a new wharf was established at Waverley Creek, which had better access by land and sea. Even so, the extension of the central railway also reduced trade and St Lawrence effectively ceased to be a port after 1879.
PR Gordon, the Chief Inspector of Sheep observed in 1871, that the preservation of meat had become an established industry in the Colony. WB Tooth of Clifton reported boiling down 32000 sheep. Boiling down works were situated at Burke, Baffle Creek, Dalby, Gladstone District, Mackay, Redbank, Rockhampton, Townsville, Westbrook and Yengarie. The Inspector stated that the Dalby and Westbrook Boiling Establishments reported having been obliged to discontinue operations on account of the excessive railway charges absorbing too large a share of the profits as the margin had become so small. The Inspector further reported that the during the present year, the Westbrook and Rockhampton curing establishments would be in active operation.
While there is no clear evidence as to who initially established the boiling down works by August 1893, the Chairman of the Divisional Board at St Lawrence, on behalf of the residents of the district wired a protest to Sir Thomas McIlwraith regarding the closing of the Customs and other government offices. The community considered that the closing of such offices would mean stagnation for the area instead of progress. It was suggested at the time that, as companies for boiling down and exporting meat and for coal mining were being initiated, the works would mean increased revenue for the district.
Two men involved with the works were TS Beatty and George Fox, who led the move to establish the factory. By September 1900, Beatty was described as one of the most enterprising men of the district, keeping the welfare of the town and district foremost in his thoughts. The meatworks was a prominent industry in the area at the time, particularly as copper mines in the area had failed, sheep were being moved west and the railway from Emerald to Clermont cut off traffic to St Lawrence. Despite difficulties such as devaluation and having little market for stock, which meant that it was almost impossible to fix a minimum price, the works were built and a price was established which had a fixed value to cattle proprietors, providing some stability in the industry. The works were described as being situated on Waverley Creek, about 'three and a half miles' from St Lawrence, connected to the wharf by a tramline and with every convenience to hand for the efficient handling of stock and carcasses.
The company had a strong propriety, both in London and the Colonies. By means of their steamer Tarshaw the works kept in direct communication with Rockhampton and the southern Colonies. Upwards of 120 men were employed and the company had a view to further extending the works through the construction of machinery for treating offal. FHT Walton, late of PD Armour and Company of Chicago, was the General Manager in 1900.
Their principal product line of the meatworks was tinned meats and extracts, with other general by-products. Stockowners received equal to 12s. 6d (1.25) per hundred (refers to weight) for the same class of stock they had previously had to accept six and six (65c) and seven and six (75c) per hundred, and save, besides droving and loss condition, when immediate neighbourhood, who supply the residents with fruit, vegetables, maize, butter, etc and the qualities of these products generally being exceptionally good. The meatworks also had freezing and chilling facilities on the spot, consequently, it was suggested that pig farming might be added to the product production.
American Clem Allcut had control of the works by the late 1890s. It appears that Allcut had taken over the preserving works at Broadsound after leaving the government service. James Pattison was in partners for some time with Clem Allcut, but eventually sold his share to Allcut. Allcut, however, faced financial troubles later and was forced to give up the works to his creditors. Soon after, he returned to the United States. The works certainly did not continue for any great length of time after Allcut left, and its closure is generally attributed to the shortage of cattle caused by the great drought of 1902.
The meatworks had some of the most modern equipment available at the time, for canned tongues and corned meat were loaded onto ships at the wharf and exported to southern markets. Local knowledge suggests that the water supply for the meatworks was pumped over a distance of more than two miles from a big lagoon on the lower portion of Waverley Plain. The pump was powered by a steam engine using an upright boiler known as a 'Donkey boiler', which is still extant.
The lagoon was located so close to the coast that the tidal waters eventually forced a breach into the bank which separated the lagoon from the sea, and ruined the supply of fresh water. Later an artificial bank or levee was built to keep the salt water out. This activity may be reflected in the name of the creek in the area, which is Bund Creek - a bund being defined as an embankment or an embanked quay.1 It is thought this occurred after the meatworks closed down, as it is considered unlikely that during the operation of the works, the owners would not have taken steps to stop the sea breaking through into the lagoon, unless this was caused by an unusually high tide.
The meatworks preserved large quantities of meat by drying and salting brisket meat, packing it in wooden casks and then canning the rest of the meat. The preserved meat in casks was bought and used to a great extent by ships, many of which might be out of port for extended periods. The tallow and hides were also marketed. Clem Allcut during his term of ownership also manufactured beef extract.
When the low prices of cattle prevailed, stock could sometimes be bought for as low as £1 per head. All the waste meat and scraps were run into a gully close by, which is thought to have filled and emptied with the rise and fall of the tide so that all this waste was carried into the nearby stream and out to sea.
By 1897-1899, the company was listed as the Broadsound Packing Co. Ltd. The Managing Director was CH Allcutt and the Secretary was WA Forth. By 1900, the company was listed as the Broadsound Meat Company with WD Preston as the Manager and WHA Britton the company accountant. In 1905, the Broadsound Meat Co had as its Manager, J Vickers, who continued in that position until 1911. From 1912, there are no further listings for the Broadsound Meat Company.
Besides drought, further competition from other meatworks such as Lakes Creek, near Rockhampton, the Rockhampton Boiling Down and Meat Works Ltd, Nerimbera, who advertised that they were prepared to treat stock on 'liberal terms', added to the difficulties faces by the meatworks at St Lawrence. With the Connors Range forming a formidable barrier to drovers with mobs of cattle, and the lack of a railway, the meatworks at St Lawrence was at a serious disadvantage.
Following its closure, machinery and any other equipment was dismantled and taken away by sea, apparently being sold, possibly to owners of other meatworks requiring the equipment. Today the former meatworks site is predominantly archaeological.
","criteria":"The Former Meatworks & Wharf Site, St Lawrence is thought to be associated with the tallow works established in the area in the 1860s, the earliest establishment of the town of St Lawrence and later with the extension of the site to include meatworks and boiling down works, from c1893 to c1911. The site survives as an important illustration of early industrial development of Queensland and of the settlement of the Broadsound area in particular.
The former meatworks and wharf site is significant in demonstrating early methods of addressing problems caused by the remoteness of areas used for stock raising and great distances between supplier and market in Queensland. It is further significant as the site survives as a legacy to the canning industry which lingered in the St Lawrence area when freezing was the dominant form of processing.
|The surviving Donkey boiler is one of few of this type known to survive in Queensland.
|With further archaeological and historical research and analysis, the place has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history and early industrial technology.
|The former meatworks and wharf site is significant as a well known tourist site and continues to attract public interest, with groups of visitors being shown the area by members of the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | 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 has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding 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":16746,"place_ref":602010,"name":"Irlam's Ant Bed Building (former)","alternate_name":"Oakey Farm | Irlams Ant Bed Building","street_address":"Clermont-Alpha Road Oaky Creek, 20km west of Clermont","suburb":"OAKY CREEK","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Irlam's former farmhouse/inn is located at Oaky Creek along the Clermont-Alpha Road. The place contains an 1870s building constructed of rammed earth (pisé de terre ) mixed with ant bed. This building is located within a fenced house yard 48 metres long and approximately 24 metres wide, abutting the south-east side of the road.
Ant Bed Building
The ant bed building is situated in the north-east corner of the house yard, approximately 5.5 metres from the fence line, and has a northerly aspect. It is a single-storeyed, one-roomed structure, approximately 7 metres by 7.5 metres, with walls approximately 41cm thick of rammed earth mixed with ant bed, resting on a base of brick coursing. The building has a shallow-pitched, hipped roof of galvanized iron, which extends beyond the exterior walls as a 2 metre wide overhang to verandahs on all sides. This is supported on timber posts.
Adjoining the southern verandah is a wire and timber-framed enclosure, with grape vines growing through it, measuring approximately 3 metres by 6.5 metres.
It appears that each of the rammed earth walls originally had a base of coursed bricks, laid brick-on-edge. Much of this brick work either has fallen out or has been removed. (Some loose bricks are scattered around the building, likely sourced from the missing wall coursing.) The rammed earth walls have been undermined by the actions of animals and insects, with some erosion possibly being advanced by ground moisture. The western wall has suffered the least degradation. Some cracking of the walls has occurred on all sides due to subsidence and expansion/contraction. All the external walls have been lime-washed at some period. Both the northern (front) and southern walls of the building have a centrally positioned timber doorframe and door of timber boards. There is a small, centrally positioned, timber-framed window opening (unglazed) in the eastern wall, but no opening in the western wall.
Internally, sawn timber boards line the upper walls. The timber roof structure probably dates to the 1930s, when the shingles were replaced by corrugated iron. The floor of the building is earth on shale. There is no indication of a below-ground cellar.
The house yard
Apart from the ant bed building, the attached timber and wire trellis, and the brick scatter surrounding the ant bed building, the remaining structures within the house yard are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register.
","history":"The ant bed building at Oaky Creek was associated with a farmhouse-cum-wayside inn established by George Irlam c1870 on the Clermont-Alpha Road, along the route to Aramac. At the inn, travellers could break their journey and sample the farm's home-grown produce.
The Clermont district was opened to non-indigenous settlement after Ludwig Leichhardt, who had explored the area in 1844, reported on its potential for pastoralists, agriculturists and miners. In the early 1850s the Archer brothers were the first pastoralists to take up land in the area and they were soon followed by other squatters and by fossickers in search of gold, coal and other minerals.
The discovery of gold near Hood's Lagoon (soon known as Diggings Lagoon) in the early 1860s paved the way for a rush to the district. A nearby settlement was surveyed in 1863 as the town of Clermont. Homesteads and townships west of Clermont were established rapidly and the bush tracks blazed by the carriers, teamsters, farmers, graziers and miners who needed a comprehensive network of roads for transporting wool, gold, copper and other produce to coastal ports, became well travelled routes. The Clermont to Aramac route via Oaky Creek was established in 1863 and following the 1866 opening of a post office at Clermont, weekly mail services to settlers in outlying areas commenced along this track.
The disruption to Aboriginal life was not welcomed by the traditional owners of the area - the Kairis (Khararyas), Wangans and Jagalingus (Jangga). Violent frontier conflict had commenced by 1861 and continued through the 1860s and into the early 1870s.
As the frontier conflict subsided, Cobb & Co. Coaches established a network of coach routes from Rockhampton to the western districts in the early 1870s. From 1878 to 1884 the firm ran a regular weekly coach between Copperfield (Clermont) and Aramac.
George Irlam had acquired various interests in the district west of Clermont by the late 1860s. He held a license for the Lord Nelson Hotel at Oaky Creek from 1869 to 1876 and by January 1871 had purchased all the Red Rock Valley cattle.
In 1872 Irlam selected 160 acres (about 65ha - portion 44, now known as Oaky Farm) at Oaky Creek, about 20 km west of Clermont along the Alpha road. An 1873 survey plan of Irlam's selection shows an established house, stockyard, garden and cultivation area on the flat of Oaky Creek. A later survey plan of the area, dated July 1879, identifies an inn in the approximate location of the farm house identified on the 1873 plan. In 1876-1877 there was no license issued for Irlam's Lord Nelson Hotel at Oaky Creek, but he did take out a license for the Oakey Creek Hotel. Given that Oaky Creek is a small district, and that an inn in this area would need to be located on the main Clermont to Aramac route to be viable, it is highly likely that the Oakey Creek Hotel was the inn identified on the 1879 plan. Whether it was earlier known as the Lord Nelson Hotel, established in the late 1860s, has not been confirmed.
When Irlam made application in July 1877 for a deed of grant for his selection, he claimed to have been residing continuously on the property since 22 February 1872 (the time of official selection). The improvements comprised a dwelling house, stock yards, and 16 acres under cultivation. Irlam made no mention of conducting an inn or hotel on the property. However, it appears that the dwelling on Irlam's selection fulfilled the dual function of farmhouse and inn, serving as a refreshment stop for travellers along the Clermont to Aramac route. Being comparatively close to Clermont (20km distant), the demand for overnight accommodation was limited and Cobb & Co. coaches did not change horses at Oaky Creek.
As soon as Irlam's conditions of selection for portion 44 had been fulfilled in 1877, he transferred the license to the Oakey Creek Hotel to James Nicholls, who in turn transferred it to J Williams in 1879. There is no license recorded for the period 1881 to 1883, but Charles Cook held the license briefly in 1884.
According to local historian Dan O'Donnell, by 1878 Irlam's hotel was well-known to travellers along the Clermont to Aramac route, for the fresh fruit grown in the adjacent orchard, which contained both tropical and temperate fruit trees including lemons, apples, peaches and bananas. A dairy (likely the surviving ant bed building on Oaky Farm) was located near to the road and to the hotel.
Australian architectural historian Dr Miles Lewis has recorded the nineteenth century use of crushed anthill clay, or ant bed, for adobe, cob, pisé de terre, earthen flooring and later the surfacing of tennis courts. Ant bed appears to have been used mainly in rural areas either due to an absence of other materials, or for its adhesive and/or insulating properties. Few ant bed structures are known to survive in Queensland.
In 1884 the railway was opened to Clermont, but coaches, carriers and travellers continued to use the Clermont to Aramac route because the rail service beyond Clermont continued north to Blair Athol, leaving western districts dependent upon traditional coach services and independent carriers. Despite this sustained use, no license for a hotel at Oaky Creek was issued after 1884.
In 1891 title to portion 44 was transferred to John Gustav Finger, who worked the property as a grazing farm until his death in 1915. In 1918 his sons August Henry and Louis Rudolph gained title to the farm, which still comprised 160 acres. The brothers expanded the yards for working cattle, which included construction of a loading ramp and dip. Louis Finger bought his brother's share in the property c1919.
Thomas and Albert James purchased the property in 1957 and continued to work it as a grazing farm. They moved another house to the site around this time, and the early dwelling house (a timber slab structure) was used by Tom James as a work shed for his saddle and leather making business. The ant bed building was used for storage. Tom resided at the property until his death in 1996.
","criteria":"The ant bed building is important in demonstrating building techniques and materials no longer common or practiced in Queensland. Constructed of rammed earth (pisé de terre) mixed with ant bed, the building is a rare surviving example of the use of ant bed as a building material and of this construction technique. If ant bed was chosen for its insulation value, then the place is even rarer.
|With further analysis of the fabric, the ant bed building has the potential to contribute further to our understanding of early construction techniques and materials in Queensland, especially in remote areas.
|As the main surviving element of the former farmhouse/inn at Oaky Creek, the ant bed building is important in demonstrating some of the principal characteristics of a small, isolated, 1870s wayside inn-cum-farmhouse. These include the location of the structure close to the Alpha Road; its function as a large, separate store or dairy; and the use of locally available materials in its construction.
|The ant bed building at George Irlam's former farmhouse/inn, established in the 1870s at Oaky Creek about 20km west of Clermont, is important in demonstrating the pattern of early non-indigenous settlement in the central highlands of Queensland. During the 1870s the building was associated with the functioning of the place as both a wayside inn and a selection farmhouse. The combination of commercial, residential and agricultural functions was illustrative of the frontier nature of early non-indigenous settlement in rural Queensland. The ant bed building is significant for its contribution to our understanding of the role of wayside inns in supporting early transportation and communication networks in isolated and remote areas of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"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 in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16926,"place_ref":601661,"name":"Christ Church Anglican Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cannon Street","suburb":"ST LAWRENCE","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Christ Church, Anglican Church, is a single storey, timber building clad with weatherboards with a gable roof clad with corrugated iron, prominently located at the eastern end of Macartney Street. A small front porch with a separated gable roof is located at the western end of the building. The gables of the main roof and the porch are surmounted by timber crucifixes. The rooms on the southern side of the church have a skillion roof clad with corrugated iron.
A set of timber stairs is located in the porch leading to the front door. The paired, cedar doors have a pointed arch design and open to the main part of the church. A group of three pointed arch, stained glass windows are located high in the eastern elevation. A similar, single window is located above the main door. A circular ventilator is located high in the western façade. Five pointed arch, cedar windows are located along the northern elevation. Three pointed arch, cedar windows are located along the southern elevation. The side rooms, associated with the skillion roofed extension, have multi-paned sash, casement windows surmounted by metal sunhoods.
Internally, timber pews are located on either side of a central aisle leading to the raised sanctuary at the eastern end of the church. The eastern wall of the sanctuary and adjoining southern wall are lined with painted horizontal tongue and groove timber. The remainder of the church is clad internally with chamferboards. This sanctuary is raised about a metre higher than the church floor and includes a cedar altar and communion rails. The timber ceiling is braced with arched metal rods.
At the rear of the church is a sandstone font with decorative mouldings and designs. The timber dedication plaque on the porch incorporates a brass centenary plaque attached to the original timber plaque. The timber plaque reads: 'Laid by Hon T.J. Byrnes; May 21 1898; A.H. Julius Vicar; W Armstrong Warden'.
The skillion roofed extension is accessed via paired cedar doors in the southern wall. The area is timber floored and clad with chamferboards. A partition divides the room at the western end and a timber trunk and metal bed with mosquito net are located in the room. A timber organ, built by WH Paling & Co, is located in room on the southern side of the church.
The church is surrounded by mature trees and garden beds.
","history":"The Christ Church Anglican Church, St Lawrence was constructed in 1898 to a design by Alfred Mowbray Hutton and constructed by Newman Brothers of Rockhampton.
European settlement began in the St Lawrence area by 1860, when John Arthur Macartney formed Waverley Station. The St Lawrence area had a strong connection with the pastoral industry in the 19th century. McCartney took up land at the head of Broadsound and Waverley in 1860 and used the banks of the St Lawrence Creek to land his supplies. Later that year a boiling down works for tallow was established. In 1861 the Rockhampton Port Master recommended the site for a port, and government buildings were soon constructed. These included a Telegraph Office, Police Station and Court House.
Prior to the establishment of an Anglican church at St Lawrence, quarterly Catholic and Anglican services, were held at the Courthouse. The development of the meatworks in 1893 meant a steady growth in population and by the end of the 1890s, a permanent church building became a necessity.
In March 1898, Vicar AH Julius visited St Lawrence to make arrangements for the immediate construction of a building. Five acres of land 'in a good position' was purchased and it was reported that '...the Church will be a conspicuous object in the main street of the town...'
Rockhampton architect, Alfred Mowbray Hutton, designed a simple building with seating for around 100 people, a side section with a large classroom and a small bedroom and verandah for visiting clergymen. Tenders were called for submission of quotes by 18 April 1898. Newman Bros of Rockhampton were awarded the contract. Alfred Mowbray Hutton (c1868-1911) was in partnership with George C Lavater as Lavater and Hutton, architects in Mildura before coming to Queensland. He took over the Rockhampton practice of James Flint in mid-1894. Hutton became an associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1897. From 1898 to 1904 he was in partnership in Rockhampton with EM Hockings and in 1911 with FE Boddington. On Saturday 21 May 1898, the Foundation stone of the church was laid by the Hon TJ Byrnes MLA, Premier of Queensland.
With a classroom for a Sunday School and a bedroom for visiting clergy, the church played an important role in the local community. At one time, the vestry served as the residence for a local school teacher. Apart from a period of about two months, there has never been a resident priest at the church. Currently located in the Parish of Park Avenue, the Christ Church Anglican church, has also been part of the Parishes of Rockhampton and North Rockhampton.
Repairs to the church became a necessity, and in 1985 local people organised a restoration committee to raise sufficient funds to replace the roof, paint the vestry and to have the stained glass windows restored. A 1988 bi-centennial grant paid for the lining of the church's north and south walls as well as the reflooring, relining and painting of the vestry. Monthly services are still held in the church.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1898 and forming part of the old town of St Lawrence, the Christ Church Anglican Church is significant in demonstrating the development of the Anglican Church in Queensland and St Lawrence during this time.
|With its steeply pitched gable roof and pointed arch motif windows and doors, the Christ Church Anglican Church is a good example of a picturesque and well executed Gothic influenced timber ecclesiastical building.
|The church is important for its aesthetic significance, particularly its substantial landmark qualities in the St Lawrence townscape and from Macartney Street.
|As a place of public worship for over 100 years, the Christ Church Anglican Church is significant for its social value for the Anglican community of St Lawrence and surrounding area.
|The church is significant for its association with Alfred Mowbray Hutton, a prominent architect in the Rockhampton and surrounding area, who designed the church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | 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 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 | 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":19673,"place_ref":602555,"name":"Stone Farm Building","alternate_name":"Fleurs","street_address":"739 Fleurs Lane","suburb":"CLERMONT","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-28","description":"Fleurs is a pastoral property situated northeast of Clermont, about 6km along Fleurs Lane from the Gregory Highway. The Stone Farm Building at Fleurs is one of a number of buildings within the complex, including the homestead and several corrugated iron clad sheds. Only the stone building is included within the heritage boundary.
The building is a well-constructed, single-storeyed, masonry structure comprising three rooms and an underground cellar. Its hipped, timber-framed roof, incorporating verandahs to all four sides in a broken back form, is clad with short, corrugated iron roof sheets. The verandah roof is supported on bush timber posts and a later verandah floor exists on the south-east and north-east sides. The substantial external walls are of random rubble construction finished externally and internally with ant bed render.
Architectural historian Miles Lewis has recorded the nineteenth century use of crushed anthill clay, or ant bed, for adobe, cob, pisé de terre, earthen flooring and later the surfacing of tennis courts. Ant bed appears to have been used mainly in rural areas either due to an absence of other materials, or for its adhesive and/or insulating properties. Comparatively few ant bed structures are known to survive in Queensland. Another building described as being a dairy located in the Clermont area is Irlam's farm building, which is constructed of rammed earth mixed with ant bed.
There is brick quoining to the corners of the stone building at Fleurs and to window and door openings. To accommodate the original verandah floor joists, a brick-on-edge course set between two layers of timber planking, provided a level surface for the joist housing around the perimeter of the building. The existing verandah floor structure abuts the external walls.
All openings have brick arch lintels. There are two windows and a pair of doors with a three-paned fanlight above in the south-east (front) wall and one window in the north-west (rear) wall. A second pair of doors with three-paned fanlight above is in the north-east wall. The window openings in the south-east elevation are lined with wire mesh and each of the windows has a sliding timber panel, and a timber-lined sill and head.
The interior is divided into three rooms with exposed stud timber partition walls lined to door head height. The two smaller interconnecting rooms at the front of the building are separated by a chamferboard-lined wall. A weatherboard-lined wall separates these from the larger room at the rear. There is a timber floor throughout supported on joists housed into log bearers. Access to the cement-rendered cellar is gained through an opening in the floor in a front room via a metal ladder. The cellar is ventilated with openings formed in brickwork in each of the corners, although the exterior openings were not located. Remains of lime wash and painted finishes survive on both internal and external walls.
","history":"The stone farm building on the property known as Fleurs in the Clermont district of central western Queensland was constructed on land initially selected by William George Hatfield, the son of Thomas and Annie Hatfield. In 1880 members of the Hatfield family selected six adjoining 500 acre portions. The family's homestead was built on portion 202, where the stone farm building still stands. Although the exact date of construction is not known, the existence of a cellar indicates that the building may have been the dairy described in an 1884 inspection of the property.
The Clermont district was opened to non-Indigenous settlement following Ludwig Leichhardt's exploration of the area in 1844 when he noted its potential for pastoralists, agriculturists and miners. The discovery of gold near Hood's Lagoon in the early 1860s paved the way for a rush to the district and a settlement near the lagoon renamed Diggings Lagoon was soon established. This was surveyed by the Queensland government in December 1863 as the town of Clermont. In January 1877 the Land Commissioner's Office received a petition from the residents of Clermont requesting survey of a town common for 'depasturing stock belonging to the town'. An area for a town common was resumed from the Crispin Downs and Wena No. 3 runs and was proclaimed as the Clermont Town and Agricultural District Common on 1 March 1878. An 1879 map of the area described the town common as 'well grassed open downs'.
On 7 January 1880 a section of the Common was proclaimed open for selection, and in February William George Hatfield applied to lease portion 202, consisting of 500 acres of first class pastoral land, under the provisions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1876. He was issued a deed of grant in July 1885. By 15 August 1884 improvements on portion 202 included: a dwelling house containing 12 rooms, an underground tank, kitchen and store, the whole valued at £1000; stables, coach house and man's room valued at £150; and a dairy with an underground tank, valued at £300. The construction material for the dairy is not stated in the list of improvements, but local history suggests that this is the surviving stone building.
William George Hatfield was the second oldest son of Thomas Hatfield. Thomas, born in Liverpool near Sydney, worked as a storekeeper and carrier in New South Wales before he decided to move to Queensland, where the discovery of gold at Peak Downs in 1863 had opened opportunities for carriers. Miners needed goods delivered from Rockhampton, and the Peak Downs Cooper Mine needed its smelted ore delivered to the coast. Thomas arrived at Rockhampton in January 1867, and he soon had teams carrying copper from Copperfield to Rockhampton, and later to St Lawrence. The Hatfield family, consisting of Thomas and Annie Hatfield and their seven children, settled in Clermont in late October 1867.
Thomas opened stores at St Lawrence, Copperfield and Clermont to sell the goods he brought in from New South Wales, and in 1868 he also opened the Commercial Hotel in St Lawrence. In 1872 he took up a lease on the Connors River, and he used this selection Yatton'to breed team horses and run cattle. As Copperfield declined during the 1870s Thomas focused more on Clermont. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1878, served as an Alderman on the Clermont Council, and was a foundation member of the Peak Downs Masonic Lodge in Copperfield in 1879.
In early 1880 Thomas, his four oldest sons (Thomas John, William George, Ernest Alfred, and Henry Herbert) and his brother John selected six adjoining 500 acre portions numbered 200 to 203, plus 207 and 210, on the former Clermont Town and Agricultural Common. These portions were collectively known as Fleurs. The local area had been named Les Fleurs, after its wildflowers, by the first owner of Wolfang Station, Oscar de Satge. Fleurs was used to breed horses, and to conduct sheep farming and dairying.
After Thomas died from typhoid on 13 December 1882, an article in the Peak Downs Telegram noted that he had recently sought to withdraw from business and devote himself to the (horse) stud farm he had recently established at Fleurs. His eldest son Thomas John took over Fleurs, running 4500 sheep and 200 cattle. Thomas John was also a JP, and he served on both the Belyando Divisional Board and the Shire Council.
In early 1909 Randolph James Wall acquired Fleurs, including portion 202. Wall also ran sheep, and some cattle, on the property. The farm is currently owned by William Fraser, the great grandson of RJ Wall. The stone farm building, which was used as shearer's quarters at one stage, is now used for storage purposes.
","criteria":"Constructed of random rubble stone with a rendered layer of ant bed and brick quoining, the stone farm building at Fleurs is a comparatively rare example in Queensland of the use of stone and ant bed to construct a well-made and permanent farm building.
|Constructed between 1880 and 1884 to service the Hatfield family's cluster of selections north of Clermont, collectively known as 'Fleurs', the stone farm building on the property remains important in illustrating how early non-indigenous settlers made use of a range of local building materials to construct homesteads in remote districts, poorly serviced by transportation and towns.
The cellar is a good example of the early practice of using cellars for cool food storage, and the building is highly intact, with its original roof form.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29133,"place_ref":602756,"name":"Clermont Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cemetery Road","suburb":"CLERMONT","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Clermont Cemetery occupies the southern portion of a roughly triangular, ten hectare block of land located approximately two kilometres north of the town centre of Clermont in central Queensland. Access to the cemetery is via several entrance gates off Cemetery Road, which runs along the southern boundary. Perpendicular to this is the eastern boundary, which lies adjacent to Old Showground Road and privately owned land. The third boundary is formed by Sandy Creek, which crosses from the south-west to the north-east corner of the property. The northern portion of the site, separated from the cemetery by a fence line running east-west, is not in use and remains covered by what appear to be native trees. This portion of the site is not included within the heritage register boundary.
Graves within the cemetery are arranged in a rectangular grid layout divided by dirt or gravel driveways and walkways, with headstones facing toward the east. The earliest graves are located towards the western end of the site, while the most recent burials and a lawn cemetery are found at the eastern end. Identified burials date from 1867 to the present, with a variety of Victorian, Edwardian and twentieth century monument styles featured throughout.
The graves associated with the 1916 flood are located within the older, western half of the cemetery that lies closest to Sandy Creek. In this area, surviving headstones from pre-1916 are made from sandstone, marble and cast iron, many of them substantial headstones of good quality design and craftsmanship.
The mass grave containing the victims of the flood is enclosed by a low fence, made from tubular steel posts with chain slung between them. Two marked grave plots containing flood victims are also enclosed by the fence. One belongs to Richard Hooper. The inscription states he 'was drowned in the great flood of Clermont'. The grave also contains his wife Elizabeth Jane Hooper who died in 1956 aged 85. It consists of a marble plaque attached to a granite headstone, with a low concrete grave kerb surrounding a concrete slab covered in black and white tiles. Four immortelles sit on top of the slab and a marble plaque with the words 'Mother Father' are attached to the kerb at the foot of the grave. The other marked grave, located further to the south, has a concrete headstone with marble plaque, concrete grave kerb and gravel infill. The three names listed on this plaque are: John Thomas Wicks, Peter Olsson and Evelyn Olsson. The inscription states that they 'were drowned in the flood of Dec 1916.'
A memorial dated 1991 is also located within the fenced enclosure. It comprises a granite block on a concrete base with small bronze plaques, naming individuals and family groups who lost their lives in the 1916 flood, attached to the eastern face. A larger plaque in the centre bears the words: 'ERECTED BY LIONESS CLUB ON 13. 4. 1991 IN MEMORY OF KNOWN VICTIMS OF DEC. 1916 FLOOD.' Next to the granite memorial on the right hand side is a tall timber post, painted white, with a small timber cross member marking the presumed level of the flood. Words painted on this cross member are: '1916 FLOOD LEVEL, approximately.'
Other flood victims' graves are found in the eastern half of the cemetery. A memorial to 34 year old Margaret Davidson (nee Healy) was erected by her siblings and consists of a marble angel on top of a marble pedestal. The grave itself is surrounded by iron fencing, painted white. Another monument is a large marble Celtic cross bearing the names of five members of the Carsten family. The inscription states that it was erected "In loving memory of my dearly beloved wife, little son, mother and sisters who lost their lives in the flood at Clermont, 28 Dec. 1916." The names listed are those of Maud Margaret Carsten (aged 30), Simon Henry Carsten (14 months), Kate Carsten (50), and Gretta and Eva Mary Carsten (22 and 26 respectively).
Throughout the rest of the cemetery, a wide variety of monumental forms are found including sarcophagi, obelisks and columns. Headstones range from simple upright slabs to those featuring elaborate ornamentation such as angels, cherubs, bibles, urns, crosses and broken columns. Materials used include marble, sandstone, iron, granite and concrete. Of note are some cast iron monuments with filigree iron lacework borders. Included amongst the early twentieth century monuments is the work of Brisbane monumental masons AL Petrie and J Petrie and Sons, and A & G Ballantine of Melbourne. J Simmonds of Brisbane is identified on an 1894 headstone.
Monuments from the mid to late 20th century are predominantly of the slab and desk type, made from materials such as concrete, granite and sandstone with some marble features and plaques. Many grave surrounds and concrete slabs are clad in ceramic tiles.
The lawn cemetery consists of wide, rectangular strips of ground surrounded by concrete kerbing, one of which features a row of flowering shrubs or small trees down the centre. Brass plaques marking individual graves are either set into concrete at ground level or attached to a continuous, inclined concrete strip.
The main entrance archway, located towards the centre of the southern boundary fence, features an arched metal sign supported by tubular metal posts on top of stone pylons and reading 'CLERMONT CEMETERY'.
The western and northern sides of the cemetery are screened by mature trees growing beyond the boundaries. A row of trees including Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) planted along Cemetery Road have a partial screening effect yet still allows views into the cemetery. A scattering of other stand-alone trees are also found growing within the cemetery. Fencing along the front boundary is made with metal post and cyclone wire and with three vehicular and four pedestrian gates spaced along its length. This fence is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. A number of sheds within the cemetery reserve are recent and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Views over surrounding countryside and farmland are obtained to the east and south of the cemetery. Through trees along the western boundary are views towards Sandy Creek and the countryside beyond.
","history":"Clermont Cemetery was established in 1866 to service the early Queensland mining town of Clermont in central Queensland. The place has functioned as Clermont's only public cemetery since the town's inception in the 1860s and it contains graves dating to this period. In December 1916 Clermont experienced the greatest recorded loss of life during a flood in Queensland, and the Clermont Cemetery contains the graves of at least 36 of the flood victims.
Establishment of Clermont
Clermont, in the Peak Downs area of the former Leichhardt Pastoral District, was one of the earliest inland towns established in central Queensland. Pastoralists took up land in the area in the early 1850s but the town of Clermont owes its existence to the discovery of alluvial gold near Hood's Lagoon circa 1861. With the resultant rush of miners to the site a tent town was established and a licensed hotel, the Diggers' Retreat, was opened in 1862. In late 1863 the area around the lagoon was surveyed as the town of Clermont, and in December that year the town was appointed a place for holding Courts of Petty Sessions. In 1863 the Peak Downs Copper Company opened the first copper mine in Queensland - a rich copper lode about five kilometres south of Clermont - and the township of Copperfield developed around the mine.
The progress of the Clermont-Copperfield district was widely reported in colonial Queensland. Charles Buzacott established the Peak Downs Telegram and Queensland Mining Record at Clermont in 1864 and in 1865 Pugh's Almanac identified Clermont as "one of the most promising townships in the interior", with a bank, hospital, court-house, newspaper office, workshops, stores, three hotels and several boarding houses. In January 1865 the Clermont Electoral District was proclaimed and in November that year the township of Clermont and the adjacent mining district was proclaimed as the Provisional Council District of Clermont - the first under the District Councils Act of 1864. In mid-1866 the residents of Clermont petitioned for municipal status which resulted in the proclamation of the combined municipality of Clermont and Copperfield in January 1867. At the time of the Queensland census of 1868, Clermont, with a population of 821, was the ninth most populous town in the colony, after Brisbane, Rockhampton, Ipswich, Maryborough, Toowoomba, Warwick, Dalby and Bowen, and had a greater population than Drayton (807), Gayndah (746), Roma (506), Gladstone (377), Townsville (346), Mackay (341), Allora (292), Leyburn (279) and Springsure (277).
In the early years Clermont was sustained by gold and copper mining and the surrounding pastoral industry. However, by the time Clermont and Copperfield each gained municipal status in May 1872, payable alluvial gold in the district was declining. The town survived largely due to the completion in 1884 of a branch railway linking Clermont to Emerald and Rockhampton. From the 1890s, coal at Blair Athol replaced gold and copper as the principal mining interest in the district. By the late twentieth century, Clermont had evolved into a medium-sized town serving coal mines and agricultural holdings in the area.
Clermont Cemetery
In late 1865 the colonial government approved a grant of 10 acres (4ha) for a cemetery at Clermont, although when surveyor Charles F Gregory made his survey early in 1866 he included a cemetery extension, bringing the total area to 15 acres 2 roods (6.27ha). In the tradition of locating public cemeteries on the outskirts of a town, the Clermont cemetery reserve was located on the banks of Sandy Creek about one kilometre north-east of the township. It was in use by April 1866 when the town buried one of its first residents, Dr WS Smith, who had been practising in the town for nearly four years. The earliest registered burial in the cemetery was that of a two year old child, David Kilpatrick, who was interred in 1867. Around 20 per cent of over 3,000 known burials in the cemetery pre-date 1900.
Under the Cemetery Act of 1865, which provided for the regulation of cemeteries throughout Queensland, trustees for the Clermont Cemetery were appointed in August 1868. They represented the Church of England, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan and Presbyterian denominations. Burials for all Christian denominations and non-Christians were received in public cemeteries, which usually were laid out in denominational sections.
Clermont Cemetery is among the earlier surviving public cemeteries in central Queensland, others being located at St Lawrence (earliest burial 1857), South Rockhampton (established 1860 - QHR 601131), Marlborough (earliest burial 1860) and Nebo (earliest burial 1866).
Early cemeteries are important records of the pattern of non-Indigenous settlement in Queensland. The Clermont Cemetery is particularly important for its association with early mining in Queensland. New goldfields typically attracted fortune seekers from all over the world and the birthplaces of those buried in the Clermont Cemetery in the nineteenth century reflected the varied origins of the town's inhabitants during the peak period of mining activity in the area. Birthplaces other than Australia and the British Isles included: China (most numerous), Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, France, and single burials each of an Austrian, Swiss, South Sea Islander, Japanese, Canadian and an American. Many of these nationalities, and others, are represented also in later graves.
Despite the renewal of trustees in 1878, by the mid-1880s the cemetery had fallen into disrepair: "The Clermont cemetery is one of those institutions which are left to manage themselves as best they may. God's Acre is all untidy and uncared for; the fences are going to ruin, and the management seems almost entirely to rest upon an irresponsible undertaker and sexton." (Brisbane Courier Friday 26 March 1886:3:4)
In 1887 the cemetery area was expanded and proclaimed as a permanent reserve of 25 acres (10.1h) for cemetery purposes. A late 1886 survey plan shows the cemetery occupying the south-western corner of the reserve, closest to the town and fronting Cemetery Road, and enclosed with a two-rail timber fence. Another two-rail fence separated the southern third of the reserve from the remainder, which was largely unimproved.
By 1901 a substantial lychgate-cum-shelter shed had been constructed at the main entrance off Cemetery Road, in the south-western corner of the cemetery reserve. This was a timber-framed structure, three or four bays in length, open-sided, with a gabled roof.
Historically during the summer months, central and north Queensland has been prone to extreme weather conditions and periods of heavy rain associated with tropical lows and cyclones which have caused major damage and loss of life. In addition to the destruction caused by high winds, torrential rain created by degenerating cyclones has caused rapid flooding of rivers and creeks, inundating large areas of land with fast flowing water.
Clermont had long experience of damaging floods - such as that of February 1870, when the town was inundated to a depth of four to five feet (1.2m to 1.5m) and four persons were drowned (15 in the wider district) - but nothing on the scale of the flood of late December 1916. During the morning of 27 December 1916 a cyclone crossed the coast between Bowen and Mackay bringing torrential rain and high wind. By 4.00am on 28 December it was located about 35 miles (56km) north-west of Clermont. Heavy rain fell into the small catchments of Sandy and Wolfang creeks. An accurate determination of rainfall was impossible as rain gauges overflowed but it was estimated that up to 30 inches (760mm) of rain fell in the area during the period of the storm which lasted around 18 hours.
An eye witness described the "wall of water" that flowed rapidly down the creeks sweeping away the low lying areas of the town of Clermont and inundating the town cemetery beside the river. In the wake of the flood the press reported: "The cemetery is merely a mass of holes. The coffins have been washed out and carried downstream, and the headstones have been wrecked, or where they were of wood have been borne long distances." (Adelaide Advertiser 9 January 1917:7) The sexton's house was washed away and the sexton was drowned.
It is estimated that the river flats were submerged under 12 to 14 feet (3.6m to 4.3m) of fast-flowing water. People sought refuge on roofs and in ceilings but the debris-laden flood waters destroyed many houses and lifted others from their stumps to be carried downstream. Other people were drowned in the flood waters while attempting to escape to higher ground. Over 60 people died, with the disaster reported throughout the country and in the London Times.
Many flood victims were buried close to where they were found, but at least 36 are known to be buried in the Clermont Cemetery. All except one of these were buried within three days of the disaster. The burials included entire families of up to seven persons, with the age of victims ranging from two to 70 years. Most were interred in a mass grave located to the east of the earlier burials.
A meeting of surviving residents soon after the flood resolved to move the town from the flats to higher ground close by. The government enacted special legislation, the Clermont Flood Relief Act 1917, to enable the town to re-establish at the new site. Some buildings were moved to the new location by traction engine.
Descendants of the flood victims still live in Clermont. In 1991, a memorial to the victims was erected in the cemetery by the Lioness Club of Clermont, on the site of the mass grave. A white cross shows the approximate height of the flood waters. Another memorial is located at the site of the original township.
The cemetery is now managed by the Isaac Regional Council and remains the main public burial ground for Clermont.
","criteria":"Clermont Cemetery, established in 1866 and still in use, is an early public burial ground in central Queensland. It is associated with the establishment of Clermont as one of Queensland's earliest mining towns; is important in demonstrating the wide ethnic diversity of an early Queensland mining community; and is an important source of unique historical information about a community that has serviced a mining, pastoral and agricultural district since the 1860s.
The place is important for its association with the great flood of December 1916 which swept away the lower areas of Clermont with the loss of over 60 lives - the worst flood in terms of loss of life in Queensland's history - and which brought about the relocation of the town from the flats around the Clermont Lagoon to higher ground nearby. At least 36 of the flood victims were buried in the Clermont Cemetery, most in a mass grave, providing emotive evidence of the human cost of Queensland's harsh climatic conditions. The cemetery itself was flooded and a marker at the mass grave shows the depth of the flood waters.
|Clermont Cemetery is important for the aesthetic values generated by the evocativeness of the monuments and memorials, particularly those associated with the 1916 flood victims; and by the workmanship displayed in many of the early monuments, many of which were crafted in other centres and transported to Clermont.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31231,"place_ref":602751,"name":"Carmila Cane Lift","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"49 Hindles Road","suburb":"CARMILA WEST","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Carmila cane lift is located on the southern side of the Carmila West Road, approximately 5km west-south-west of the township of Carmila. Carmila is located on the Bruce Highway 100km south of Mackay.
Standing between 7m and 9m high, the lift comprises two upright poles supporting a horizontal cross beam. The beam comprises an unfinished wooden log. The upright poles are covered with a climbing vine.
A pulley wheel is loosely fitted to the top of the cross beam with a metal clamp and lengths of heavy duty wire. Steel cable runs through the pulley wheel and a hook is suspended at the end of the cable. Set into the ground beneath the horizontal beam are two sets of roller mechanisms each set comprising two steel rollers and a steel cog. These project slightly from the ground.
The lift is located in an open grassy area containing some low scrub and a few trees.
","history":"The Carmila cane lift is situated near the locality of Carmila West south of the township of Sarina in the Broad Sound area. Sugar cane is a major crop in Queensland; the state produces almost all of the nation's sugar. The cane lifts formed part of the process of transporting bundled whole stalks of harvested sugar cane from the farms to the mill. They were rendered obsolete by the universal adoption of 'chopper' harvesters from the 1960s.
Sugar cane was first introduced to Australia in 1788 with the arrival of the first fleet. In 1821, Port Macquarie under the command of Captain Allman became Australia's first cane-growing area. In Queensland, the successful cultivation of sugar cane was established in 1864 at Redland Bay by Captain Louis Hope who erected Queensland's first sugar-crushing mill on the banks of Hilliard's Creek about 25km south-east of Brisbane.
Cane growing was tried at Bowen in the Whitsunday region in 1864 but continued there only until 1869, when it became clear that the climate was too dry. In the Pioneer Valley the first grower in the Mackay region was John Spiller. He arrived in Mackay in 1865 as a would-be squatter without capital but with cane brought from Java which he planted on the north bank of the Pioneer River. In June 1867 he produced the first sugar in the region.
The incipient cane growing industry was given impetus in 1864 with the enactment of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations, introduced by the government to encourage northern settlement. This enabled lessees to obtain plots of up to 1,280 acres (about 518ha) at a reasonable cost. Spiller and John Crees selected two blocks that became the Pioneer Plantation and built a primitive mill. T H Fitzgerald began a commercial plantation, Alexandra, in 1866 and with J Ewen Davidson set up a steam-powered mill that produced 110 tons (about 100 tonnes) of sugar in 1868. With these facilities a sugar boom began: small growers brought their cane for crushing to the Alexandra mill and acreage under cane expanded rapidly. Cane growers pushed back the graziers and by 1870 five mills were established.
By 1872 Mackay mills produced 40 per cent of the total Queensland sugar production and 37 per cent of its rum. Seventeen mills were established along the Pioneer River before 1875, most in 1872 and 1873. Another 12 including Farleigh, Habana, Homebush, and Marian were established between 1881 and 1885, then North Eton and Racecourse in 1888, Plane Creek began at Sarina in 1896 and in 1906 Cattle Creek Mill at Finch Hatton started operations.
Where crops were near the main railway line, cut cane was transported from field to mill via rail wagons. However, in cases where the crops and mills were remote from the railway, many mills established extensive tram networks for transporting harvested cane. The railway and tram networks continue to be used together with road transport.
From at least as early as the 1890s, cane lifts at tram or railway sidings were used to transfer bundles of cane onto rail or tram wagons. Cane was initially harvested as whole stalks by hand and, later, by wholestalk mechanical harvesters. The cane was cut close to the ground and then the top foliage was cut off. It was transported to the mill as whole stalks. A frequent practise was to lay temporary tramlines into the field so that tram wagons could be loaded with cut cane close to where the harvesting took place. Where this practise was not followed, the cane was loaded onto a horse drawn wagon or motorised vehicle. This was done by hand until the introduction of mechanised loaders in the mid-20th century. The wagon or vehicle transported the cane to the nearest siding where the bundles of cane were transferred onto a tram or rail wagon using the cane lifts.
Many lifts were on private property, others on railway land at sidings. In many cases sugar mills paid for the construction of the lifts and cane farmers repaid the money at a predetermined cost per ton of cane sent to the mill.
The lifts took different forms. F W Bolton, the manager of Farleigh Mill, is credited with introducing the 'traverser' type by 1891. This consisted of an overhead travelling winch which traversed a horizontal beam supported by two posts. The cane was laid flat on a sling in a dray which was driven under the winch. The winch was used to hoist the bundle of cane which was traversed about two metres and lowered into a tramway wagon parked next to the dray. The lift was praised at the time for greatly reducing loading times and enabling the cane to be packed more densely. Apparently this type of lift was widely adopted but there are no known examples extant in the Mackay area.
A similar configuration, possibly a modification of the traverser type, comprised two posts supporting a horizontal beam with a fixed pulley. These were predominantly used with tram wagons. As with the traverser the tram track passed under the horizontal beam. The wagon or truck containing the cane stalks was driven along the tram tracks to a position beneath the horizontal beam. The bundle of cane was hoisted, then the truck was driven out and its position taken by the tram wagon into which the cane was then lowered.
A third or 'derrick' type consisted of a load bearing boom fixed by a pivoting coupling to the bottom of a mast. It was held in a diagonal attitude to the mast by a hinged horizontal beam extending from the top of the mast to the end of the boom. The boom swung in an arc and the lifting hook was lowered from the end of the horizontal beam. Derrick type lifts were in use by 1893. They were used mostly to load cane into main line railway wagons.
Albert John Wellman Fudge, a carpenter, is credited by some with inventing the derrick type lift. Fudge was a British immigrant who moved to Mackay in the 1890s. It is claimed that Fudge built over one hundred cane lifts for most district mills. His work was said to have been carried on by Harry Penny until the introduction of chopper harvesters.
A variety of methods were used to power the hoist. It was common to use a horse hitched to a pole fixed to a rotating drum. This system was later adapted for use with a motor. From World War II, trucks were also used. Power was transferred via a set of rollers positioned in the ground so that they would engage with the wheels of the the truck carrying the cane. These lifts were known as 'Tracey' lifts.
The Carmila lift is a Tracey lift. It is configured in a similar way to a traverser type, comprising a horizontal beam supported by two posts. A pulley fitted to the horizontal beam is loosely held in place with a metal clamp and lengths of heavy wire. The rollers that form part of the lifting mechanism for this type of lift remain extant in the ground beneath the horizontal beam.
The lift is located on the route of the former Plane Creek Mill tramway (no longer extant). The Plane Creek Mill commenced operations in 1896 and the tramway at Carmila was present by the mid 1920s. Therefore the lift dates to between the 1920s and the 1960s when cane lifts were no longer used.
Cane lifts became redundant after the widespread introduction of chopper mechanical harvesters. Mechanical harvesting was attempted with little real success from the late 19th century. The development of mechanical harvesters accelerated from World War II. The first harvesters cut the cane as whole stalks. This meant that the labour intensive task of bundling whole cane stalks and loading them continued. From the early 1950s, mechanical loaders alleviated this problem to some extent.
The introduction of chopper harvesters solved the loading problem. These harvesters chop the cane stalks into short lengths or billets. The billets are ejected from the harvester directly into bins towed by motor vehicle alongside the harvester. The bins are towed to the rail siding where they are transferred onto tram or rail wagons. Alternatively, the billets are tipped into bins on the wagons. By the mid-1960s, chopper harvesters had almost completely superseded whole stalk harvesters. The extant cane lifts probably all predate this time and some could date to the late 19th century.
","criteria":"The Carmila cane lift, located near Sarina, is one of a group of lifts in the Mackay/Whitsunday region, one of Queensland's oldest and most productive sugar cane growing areas. Historically, sugar has been one of the State's most important agricultural commodities. The lifts are important in demonstrating the evolution of the industry in that they provide evidence of how harvested cane was transported before the introduction of mechanical chopper harvesters. Sugar cane was originally harvested and transported to mills as whole stalks. The lifts were used to hoist bundles of stalks into tram or train wagons. They became redundant after the universal adoption of chopper harvesters from the 1960s. The Carmila lift is located on the route of the former Plane Creek Mill tramway, established by the mid 1920s.
|The Carmila cane lift is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Tracey lift. Cane lifts took two basic forms: a derrick with a swinging boom, and a horizontal beam supported by two upright posts. The Tracey lift took the latter form and was powered by a truck backed under the lift so its back wheels engaged with rollers set into the ground. The lift at Carmila is an intact example of this type and includes the roller mechanism, pulley with cable and a hook.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","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"} ]}