The Boer Memorial is situated in a small park in Gatton in front of the railway station. The monument is centrally located in a paved area in the centre of the park and is flanked by two large fig trees.
The paved area consists of a short path at the front which divides into curved paths around the memorial and rejoins at the rear to continue in a short, straight path. Comparatively new planting is contained in beds on either side of the paving.
The Helidon sandstone Boer Memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a slightly concave base constructed of sandstone blocks. This is surmounted by a curved moulding and a smooth-faced step which is capped by a series of curved mouldings with shadow reveals between.
The pedestal comprises a recessed square section with freestanding columns at each corner. Leaded marble plaques are located on the front and rear faces stating the names and ranks of the four local men who died as a result of the Boer War. One of the men was a bugler, and the front face has a relief carved bugle above the plaque. The insignia of the Australian Light Horse is located above the plaque on the rear face.
The columns have Corinthian order capitals and bases and support a large frieze and cornice. The cornice has a large central convex surface on which is a simple, deeply carved curvilinear pattern.
Surmounting the pedestal is the digger statue which is life-sized. The soldier stands on a square plinth decorated on all faces with relief carved wreaths and festoons. His head is bowed and hands are resting on his reversed rifle. A supporting tree stump is located at the rear of the statue.
","history":"The Gatton Boer War Memorial was unveiled on 3 August 1908 by Governor of Queensland, Lord Chelmsford and was designed by architect, William Hodgen. The stone memorial honours four local men who lost their lives in, or as a result of the Boer War.
\nIn April 1907, a public meeting was held at which it was decided to erect a memorial. A design competition was announced and was won by Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen.
\nWilliam Hodgen was born in Toowoomba in 1866. He was employed by the Colonial Architects Office in Brisbane from 1886 to 1891 when he left for London. On his return to Queensland in 1896 he established a private practice in Toowoomba and designed buildings throughout Queensland. The Gatton Boer War Memorial is an unusual example of his work.
\nThe pedestal was produced by Toowoomba monumental mason, Walter Bruce and the statue was imported from Italy. The total cost of the monument was £200.
\nThe Gatton memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state. After the First World War, the construction of war memorials was prolific. In 1908, when this memorial was unveiled, they were still quite rare.
\nAustralian war memorials are valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue, which was first used to commemorate those who died in the Boer War, became the popular choice of memorial for the First World War. This was in contrast to the southern states where the obelisk predominated.
\nThe digger statue later embodied the ANZAC myth, representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
\nMost statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
\nThere are only three known Boer War memorials in Queensland in the form of the digger. Of these only two were erected shortly after the war. These are the Allora Memorial, erected in 1904 and the Gatton Memorial, erected in 1908. The third Boer memorial, in Brisbane, was not unveiled until 1919.
\nThis memorial was originally located in the intersection of Railway and Cresent Streets and was moved in the late 1970s. It originally stood on a stepped base, which was lost in the relocation. In 1984 the monument was sandblasted to remove layers of paint. The original Italian marble digger statue , which was said to be very realistic, was replaced by the current sandstone statue. When this occurred, or for what reason is unknown.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state, which became prolific after the First World War but in 1908 when this memorial was constructed were quite rare.
The Boer War Memorial at Gatton is an immensely important Queensland monument.
|It is one of only two known digger statues built to commemorate the involvement and death of Queensland soldiers in the Boer War of 1899-1902. A third Boer War Memorial was unveiled in Brisbane at a much later date.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste.
The Gatton Boer War Memorial demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|It is of aesthetic significance, both as a landmark within the streetscape and for its high level of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen as an unusual example of his work.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen as an unusual example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | 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 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 | 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":15286,"place_ref":600511,"name":"Weeping Mother Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hickey Street","suburb":"GATTON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park setting and is surrounded by mature trees.
The memorial is located in comparatively new landscaping comprising paved pathways and gardens beds with new planting. It is approached by a path from Hickey Street which passes a bottle tree. New sandstone slabs with bronze plates to the front faces are located on either side of the path leading to the monuments. These are memorials to soldiers in later conflicts.
The pathways form a cross with the monument located at the centre. A gun or 'war trophy' is located at the rear and each side of the monument. A flagpole is located to one side.
The monument itself stands on a concrete base step. Above this are two smooth-faced marble steps capped by a rounded moulding. The first step is square in plan, whilst the upper one steps in at the centre of each face.
Above this base is a mausoleum type structure comprising four columns and a roof. The floor, from which a central square pillar rises, is laid with black and white marble tiles in a chequerboard pattern. The pillar sits on a base of two steps and is partially covered with a tasselled shroud. It bears the leaded names of the 68 local men who fell in the First World War. The names of those who fell in later conflicts are recorded on the base of the pillar; 23 in the Second World War and 2 in Vietnam.
The pillar is flanked by columns at each corner. Each has simply moulded bases, and Greek egg and dart ornamentation at the top. The columns support a roof like structure which sits on square blocks at each corner. A curved fascia spans between each block and the roof structure has a pediment to each face. The dates 1939 - 1945 are leaded on the front face. At the centre of the roof is a square base with a mound of rocks above it. Sitting on this is a two thirds life size figure of a weeping mother. Her chin rests on her right hand and she holds a scroll which bears the leaded inscription Their names liveth forevermore.
The monument is made up of different types of marbles. The figure itself is of coarse Ulam Marble. Finer marble with a grey grain has been used in some areas such as the columns and base and black marble has been used on the floor.
","history":"The Gatton Weeping Mothers War Memorial was designed and produced by well known and highly regarded Ipswich mason Frank Williams. The marble memorial honours the 68 local men who fell during the First World War.
The memorial cost over £500 which was raised through public subscription. A memorial committee was formed and the Chairman, Richard James laid the foundation stone on 22 April 1922. The date of the official unveiling is unknown.
In 1933, a light to illuminate the statue at night was added by the Gatton RSL and Womens Auxiliary and was officially switched on by ex-First World War nurse, Nurse Pollock on Armistice Day.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Many different types of war memorials were erected throughout Queensland, however none are as emotive or as unique in design as the one at Gatton. At the laying of the foundation stone, the memorial was said to be an expression of sympathy with the mothers of fallen soldiers.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War
|Its design is unique in Queensland and possibly in Australia.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Gatton demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a landmark and also for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event It also has a special association as an exemplary example of mason / sculptor Frank Williams.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event It also has a special association as an exemplary example of mason / sculptor Frank Williams.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | 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 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 | 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":15287,"place_ref":600512,"name":"Bank of New South Wales premises and attached residence (former)","alternate_name":"The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited | Bank of Queensland Limited | Bank of Commerce","street_address":"7 Railway Street","suburb":"HELIDON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former bank building is located on the western side of Railway Street, Helidon approximately 50 metres from the street.
It is a timber structure on low stumps comprised of a banking chamber with manager's residence at the rear. The facade of the banking chamber features a central arch above the entry with the pediment above supported on double timber corbels and fluted timber pilasters. Above the pediment is a gable clad with pressed metal sheeting. The verandahs to the manager's residence have been built in. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and the intersection of the gabled roof of the former banking chamber and the pyramid-roofed residence is unusual in form, being a striking feature of the building.
There are other buildings on site including a house to the rear of the bank building. These are not included in this entry.
","history":"The former Bank of New South Wales building at Helidon was constructed for the Royal Bank of Queensland, probably in 1915-1916.
Queensland's first indigenous bank, the Queensland National Bank, was established in 1872, by a group of prominent Queenslanders who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited was established in 1885 when local investors were finding it hard to obtain loans from sources outside Queensland. By 1889 it had 20 branches and agencies including branches at London and Edinburgh. It did not achieve the importance of the QN Bank, but was a competitor to it and, with the Bank of North Queensland, was one of the three 19th-century banks formed in the colony.
The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited established a Receiving Office, operated by its Gatton Branch, on this site in 1906. In May 1910, when it was realised that a rival bank, the Australian Joint Stock Bank, was about to open in premises directly across the street, this office was upgraded to a full branch in order to retain its sizeable business in the town. The Australian Bank of Commerce absorbed the Australian Joint Stock Bank in the same year.
In 1911, the Royal Bank held a mortgage on this land from the owner, Mary Ellen Barry, but did not acquire the land until 1915, when it is thought that the combined bank and residence was constructed. In 1917 the Royal Bank of Queensland merged with the Bank of North Queensland to the Bank of Queensland Limited. The National Bank of Australasia absorbed this bank in 1922. Possibly in anticipation of this merger the Helidon branch was sold in 1921. It was purchased by the Australian Bank of Commerce, and so passed into the hands of its original competitor.
The next change of name occurred in 1932 following the acquisition of the Australian Bank of Commerce by the Bank of New South Wales. It was as the Bank of New South Wales that this branch traded until 1970 when it was closed and the building passed into private ownership in 1971. It has since been used as a residence.
","criteria":"The former bank building was constructed for the Royal Bank of Queensland Limited and is important in illustrating the development of Queensland because it was purpose built as premises for a bank formed to serve Queensland interests and needs when the state was a self-governing colony. It also illustrates the development of Helidon, which was a refreshment stop on the main railway line between Brisbane and Wallangarra, the state border interchange.
The former bank is important for its association with the Royal Bank of Queensland, one of Queensland's three indigenous banks.
|The building is a good example, adapted for a small rural town, of a combined banking chamber and manager's residence. This residential arrangement was common in bank buildings from the nineteenth century until World War Two.
|The former Bank of New South Wales building is important for its architectural appeal, which makes a major contribution to the townscape of Helidon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15288,"place_ref":600513,"name":"Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Lockyer)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba - Helidon Line","suburb":"LOCKYER CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge spans a dry gully on the eastern bank of Lockyer Creek, 1 kilometre south south east of Lockyer. It is a concrete arch bridge aligned on a 12 chain curve and carrying a single track on a ballasted deck. Its spans are:
·\t2x14 foot (4.3m) reinforced concrete arches, concrete abutment, common concrete piers.
·\t1x90 foot (27.4m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x10 foot (3.0m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
·\t2x14 foot (4.3m) reinforced concrete arches, common concrete piers, concrete abutment.
The spandrel columns are arranged in pairs, one for each arch rib, with crossbracing in concrete. The arch ribs are parabolic of rectangular section. There is a concrete balustrade. The whole structure is in cast-in-situ concrete.
","history":"This bridge was built in 1910 as part of the Brisbane - Toowoomba Railway and was one of three railway bridges constructed over Lockyer Creek.
The railway opened for traffic between Helidon and Toowoomba on 1 May 1867. From the 1870s there has been a continuing process of improving the Main Line between Brisbane and Toowoomba because of its importance as a major arterial route. As part of that process, which required the replacement of original bridges to carry heavier loads, construction work began in 1908 on a new bridge and deviation over the Lockyer Creek tributary at 75m 48c. The design for the innovative reinforced concrete arch bridge was completed and signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan on 2 February 1909. The bridge and deviation were completed and brought into use on 18 July 1910.
The use of concrete arches for railway bridges is a distinctive feature in Queensland and South Australia. The first concrete bridge in Queensland was constructed at Petrie Terrace in 1897. Between 1900 and 1913, six arch concrete railway bridges were constructed in Queensland approximating with the term in office of William Pagan as Chief Engineer of Railways and it is believed that he was responsible for their design. The first two, at Rangeview, near Toowoomba and at Deep Creek, Chowey, followed the form of a stone arch bridge. Later bridges were more innovative in design and this bridge was the second reinforced concrete arch rail bridge in Australia, following the 1906 bridge built at Steep Rocky Creek near Gayndah. The Lockyer bridge has a single main span of 27.4 metres, about the same as the maximum span of Lockyer Creek, which was the third largest span of Australian arch bridges built at the time of construction.
","criteria":"The Lockyer Creek railway bridge at Lockyer demonstrates the development of railways in Queensland, being an example of the way in which this important early railway line was upgraded to meet the requirements of the early 20th century. It illustrates the skill with which the technology of the era was used to solve the problems of climatic conditions and terrain encountered in this process.
|The design of the bridge is aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and its arches form an attractive contrast with the vegetation of its setting over a gully.
|This Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge at Lockyer was built to an innovative design, being only the second reinforced concrete arched bridge designed in Australia. It was one of a series of concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland railways between 1900 and 1913 and is unusual in construction for an Australian bridge, having separate twin parabolic arch ribs and braced concrete spandrel columns.
|The bridge is an important example of the work of William Pagan, Chief Engineer for Railways and a major figure in the early history of engineering in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | 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 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":15289,"place_ref":600514,"name":"Ma Ma Creek War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Gatton Clifton Road","suburb":"MA MA CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in St Stephens cemetery on the Gatton -Clifton Road next to the State School. It is a small country cemetery located on the northern side of a cement block church and enclosed by a wire mesh fence. The site is elevated and all headstones, and the memorial, face east.
The memorial is located in the Andrews family plot at the front of the cemetery and is a prominent element in the setting from the roadway. It comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The sandstone memorial sits on a double stepped sandstone base with smooth faces. Surmounting this is a plinth with rough-cut faces, margined and chiselled around and a chamfered top. At the centre of each face is a smooth-faced sandstone plaque with a triangular top that projects into the chamfered surface. A L PETRIE is carved onto the front chamfered surface.
The pedestal comprises a smooth-faced square pillar with marble plaques on the front and side faces. The front plaque bears a leaded ivy leaf motif, inscriptions and the names and details of the three Andrews brothers killed in the First World war. At the top and bottom of the pier are rough-faced blocks, margined and chiselled around. The digger stands on a smooth-faced double step which surmounts a cornice with triangular pediments to each face. These are also rough-cut, margined and chiselled around.
The digger statue is depicted as life-sized with his head bowed and hands resting on a reversed rifle. Unusually for this type of the statue, the digger wears a cap instead on a slouch hat. He his supported by a tree stump at the rear.
","history":"The Ma Ma Creek War Memorial was erected in 1920 for Fleurine Elsie Andrews. It was designed and produced by A L Petrie and Son of Toowong, Brisbane.
After losing three sons in the First World War, Fleurine Elsie Andrews commissioned a memorial and donated an organ the church in memory of her sons The three sons were; Private James Martin (killed on 5 August 1916, aged 26 years), Private George Henry Andrews (killed on 9 June 1917, aged 28 years) and Private Bertie Reginald Andrews (killed on 10 June 1918, aged 20 years). All were killed in France.
The district of Ma Ma Creek probably takes its name from the aboriginal name for the creek which flows through the area, the Mia Mia. The area was one of the earliest settled parts of West Moreton, valued for its rich fertile lands and abundant water supply. The first settlers were mostly European and cleared both the ridges and the flats for grazing. Cotton growing was attempted in the 1870s, and again, more successfully, in the 1890s when Ipswich established a cotton mill. The area survives as a small township in the centre of a primarily agricultural area.
The cemetery at Ma Ma Creek was consecrated in April 1896 and small wooden church was erected to service to local Anglican community. In 1912, the existing church, designed by Brisbane architect, W C Voller, was erected.
The First World War Memorial is situated in the St Stephens cemetery, directly behind the Andrews family plot. Although privately owned, it became the focus of public Anzac Day memorial services.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
A L Petrie and Sons of Toowong were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time and produced many war memorials throughout the state.
The memorial at Ma Ma Creek is a Petrie design on a standard base, also evident at Biggenden and Southport in Queensland and in New South Wales. This is the only remaining digger in Queensland to be depicted wearing a cap instead of a slouch hat. The only other known example was at Biggenden, which now has a replacement statue.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
The memorial is significant as evidence of the extent of personal impact experienced by families throughout Queensland after the First World War.
|This particular digger statue is uncommon in that it is portrayed wearing a cap rather than the usual slouch hat. It is also a rare example of a privately erected memorial situated in a graveyard.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1920 the memorial at Ma Ma Creek demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a distinctive landmark in an otherwise typical country churchyard and also for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has special association with the Andrews family, who erected the memorial after losing three members in the First World War and also with the local community, as the focal point for public remembrance services.
|It has special association with the Andrews family, who erected the memorial after losing three members in the First World War and also with the local community, as the focal point for public remembrance services.
The memorial also has special association with monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son as an intact example of their workmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | 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 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 | 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":15290,"place_ref":600515,"name":"Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Guinn Park)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba - Helidon Line","suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A concrete arch bridge aligned on a straight alignment and carrying a single track on a ballasted deck. Its spans are:
2x15 foot (4.6m) reinforced concrete arches, concrete abutment, common concrete piers.
1x74 foot (22.6m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x12 foot (3.7m) and 1x13 foot (4.0m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
1x90 foot (27.4m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x12 foot (3.7m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
1x74 foot (22.6m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 1x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x12 foot (3.7m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
3x15 foot (4.6m) reinforced concrete arches, common concrete piers, concrete abutment.
The spandrel columns are arranged in pairs, one for each arch rib, with crossbracing in concrete. The arch ribs are parabolic of rectangular section. There is a concrete balustrade. The whole structure is in cast-in-situ concrete.
","history":"The railway opened for traffic between Helidon and Toowoomba on 1 May 1867. From the 1870s there has been a continuing process of improving the Main Line between Brisbane and Toowoomba because of its importance as a major arterial route. As part of that process, which required the replacement of original bridges to carry heavier loads, construction work began in 1909 on a reinforced concrete arch bridge over Lockyer Creek at 77m 55c immediately following the construction of one at 75m 48c. Design of the innovative bridge was completed and signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan on 31 March 1910. The bridge and deviation were completed and brought into use on 21 December 1911.
","criteria":"This reinforced concrete arched bridge on a straight alignment has one of the largest spans of its type in Australia. Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|This reinforced concrete arched bridge on a straight alignment has one of the largest spans of its type in Australia. Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | 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 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":15424,"place_ref":600649,"name":"Forest Hill War Memorial","alternate_name":"Forest Hill Soldiers Memorial","street_address":"Gordon Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Forest Hill War Memorial is located in a small park at the end of Victoria Street, completing a vista down the town's main street. The finely carved memorial stands approximately four and a half metres high, and consists of a life-size grey sandstone Digger statue on a tall sandstone pedestal. The statue faces eastwards, in the direction of an adjacent steel flagstaff. The site is marked out with small steel fence posts and chains.
The pedestal rests on a plinth of blocked rusticated brown sandstone on a stepped concrete base. The lower portion of the pedestal is columnar, with leaded marble plaques, and rests on a block with shaped corners. The upper portion has a central wreathed column surrounded by colonnettes, and the statue is mounted on rounded base which caps the colonnettes.
The memorial contributes to the townscape of Forest Hill in its axial location at the end of the main street.
","history":"The Forest Hill War Memorial was erected by the Forest Hill Memorial League in 1921, in a small reserve adjacent to the railway line.
The township of Forest Hill developed during the 1890s, following the repurchase by the Queensland Government of 6 000 acres from the Rosewood station. Although the Ipswich to Toowoomba railway had been surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, it was not until c1881 that a siding was established in the Forest Hill area. Originally known as Boyd's siding, it was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill railway station c1887. As the surrounding country was progressively opened and settled by farmers, Forest Hill became a busy transport centre for agricultural produce, often requiring special trains to be run from Forest Hill.
The masons for the monument were PJ Lowther and Sons of Brisbane, who were also responsible for memorials in Brisbane (the pedestal for the South African memorial), Blackbutt, Murgon, Goodna, Mount Perry and Tiaro. It is possible that the monument was actually carved by Charles Lowther, sculptor son of this Brisbane masonry family, and an ex-serviceman who fought with the Australian Light Horse in the First World War.
The monument cost £300, and was unveiled by five mothers of fallen soldiers. A plate with the names of World War 2 servicemen was added at a later stage.
","criteria":"The Forest Hill War Memorial is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of an era of widespread expression of Australian patriotism and nationalism, during and following the First World War.
|As a 'Digger' statue, it demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community, in particular the fine craft work of the sandstone carving and the aesthetic contribution of the monument to the townscape of Forest Hill in a vista down the main street.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event.
","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":15425,"place_ref":600650,"name":"Lockyer Hotel","alternate_name":"The Lockyer Hotel","street_address":"Victoria Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lockyer Hotel is prominently sited on the corner of Victoria and William Streets. It is a double-storeyed externally framed timber building, with generous verandahs overlooking the street, and a hipped corrugated galvanised iron roof. The building has a truncated entrance corner at the street intersection, and is abutted by an L-shaped single storeyed weatherboard annex to the east.
The hotel contains two bars on the ground floor, and accommodation upstairs. The principal bar, which is entered from the street corner, displays evidence of having once been two rooms, with an original timber archway and new post and beam replacing the wall. The bar has french doors and sliding sash windows, and arched sliding sash windows either side of the corner entrance. The entry vestibule to the upstairs accommodation to the south of the bar has a decorative arch above the foot of the timber stairs. The stairs have a carved balustrade, and a stained glass window at the half-landing.
The annex includes some fabric of the original outhouse kitchen, in particular the fireplace, chimney and stove, and windows which were once external.
The upstairs accommodation is comprised of small rooms flanking a central north-south running corridor. The walls are vertically-jointed timber, and all rooms have french doors opening onto a deep verandah.
The verandah has unpainted timber floors, iron lace-work balustrades, and is covered by a bull-nosed awning. The eastern verandah has been partially closed in. The verandah and awning are supported by chamfered posts with timber capitals resting on square concrete upstands; these posts are paired at the truncated corner. The exterior is further embellished with batten screens forming arches which run under the verandah. The battens have small decorative holes at their ends.
The external framing is mostly stud and nogging, with cross-bracing at the corners.
The exterior of the building is intact and its distinctive character and position makes the Lockyer Hotel one of the most prominent buildings in the town.
","history":"This two-storeyed timber hotel appears to have been built in 1906, for local Forest Hill farmer Alexander McAllister, who acquired the site in 1897. It was the town's third hotel, erected during the early 20th century growth of Forest Hill as a railhead and service centre, following closer agricultural settlement of the immediate area in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
From the 1840s to the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. The Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps. The Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area, about a mile and a half closer to Laidley than the present Forest Hill station, until c1881. Originally it was called Boyd's Siding, servicing the property of Mr AJ Boyd, about 4 miles from the railway line. Boyd, the first agriculturalist in the area, planted an orchard and named his property Forest Hill, after which the siding was named in the early 1880s. This siding was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill station c1887.
In 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres of the Rosewood freehold on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. This Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land, was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton. A further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates.
The Lockyer Hotel was erected during this growth period. In November 1906, Alex McAllister was granted a publican's licence, but this was transferred a month later to Frederick William Wilson, who had taken out an 8 year lease on the property in October 1906. In February 1907 the licence was transferred to Janet Meredith, previously the licensee of the Station Hotel (erected c1900) in Forest Hill. Mrs Meredith took over the lease of the Lockyer Hotel in 1907 and purchased the property in 1911. From late 1911 she leased it to a succession of publicans but retained ownership until her death in 1955. The Lockyer Hotel remained in the Meredith family until 1969. The rear annex, which includes the dining room, was erected in the late 1970s.
","criteria":"The Lockyer Hotel, Forest Hill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the early 20th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point for the surrounding agricultural district.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a two-storeyed, early 20th century, single-skin timber hotel in rural Queensland.
|As one of the most prominent and distinctive buildings in Forest Hill, the Lockyer Hotel makes an important aesthetic contribution to the character and townscape of the town, which is valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15426,"place_ref":600651,"name":"Shop, 3 Victoria Street, Forest Hill","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank","street_address":"50 Victoria Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Occupying the north western corner of a triangular site near the intersection of Victoria and William Streets, the former bank is a single-storeyed building, slightly elevated on stumps, with chamferboard walls. Rectangular in plan, this timber framed structure is distinguished by a restrained ornamental facade of asymmetrical design which faces Victoria Street.
The Victoria street facade consists of a parapet wall marking the western alignment, a wide skillion roofed awning which covers the footpath in front of the building and an attached entry porch on its northern side. The parapet wall is decorated by timber mouldings forming a simplified entablature. Behind the parapet is a simple pitched corrugated iron roof that terminates in a hip at rear of the building.
The awning is supported by a row of timber posts positioned at the edge of the footpath nearest the road. The posts are decorated with timber brackets and double timber posts emphasise the outer corners of the awning. Below the line of the awning are three double hung timber windows facing the street. At the northern end of the street facade are steps leading to the entry porch. Both the awning and the parapet wall extend beyond the main part of the building forming a front for the attached porch. The pitched roof over the entry porch together with the skillion roof of the footpath awning forms an unequal gable facing north which is infilled with timber battens. The porch has a timber balustrade and decorative arches.
A timber panelled door opens from the entry porch into the main room which takes up the front part of the building. Behind this is a larger room on the northern side and a smaller windowless room on southern side. The building has no hallway being simply a series of interconnected rooms. At the rear of the building are a number of smaller rooms connected by various doors and windows. Ceilings and internal walls are lined with v-jointed timber boards.
The northern elevation has three windows as well as the main entry door and a minimal roof overhang. The southern wall is a plain chamferboard parapet wall, previously concealed by the adjoining building which has been demolished. The rear or eastern facade has a minimal roof overhang. Timber steps lead from the centrally positioned back door to the rear yard. A rainwater tank is located adjacent to the south east corner of the building.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building was erected c.1909 as offices for the Forest Hill branch of the powerful Queensland National Bank, established in 1872. The building was constructed on land leased, in November 1909, from Forest Hill property owner Allister McAllister. McAllister had acquired the site in 1897, as part of a larger block at the corner of Victoria and William Streets, on which he erected the Lockyer Hotel (QHR 600650) c.1906. The new QNB building was erected adjacent to the hotel and close to the railway depot, in the commercial centre of the town.
The Queensland National Bank first opened a branch office at Forest Hill on 10 September 1901, in leased premises. A c.1908 photograph shows the branch occupying part of George Wyman's store in Victoria Street. It was the town's first bank, opened during the early 20th century growth of Forest Hill as a railhead and service centre, following closer agricultural settlement of the area in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
Until the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. The Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps. The Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area, about a mile and a half closer to Laidley than the present Forest Hill station, until c.1881. Originally it was called Boyd's Siding, servicing the property of Mr AJ Boyd, about 4 miles from the railway line. Boyd, the first agriculturalist in the area, planted an orchard and named his property Forest Hill, after which the siding was named in the early 1880s. This siding was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill station c.1887.
In 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding, into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of part of the Rosewood freehold, 6,000 acres of fertile black soil land on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. The Rosewood Estate was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton.
In January 1903, the Board of the QNB decided to close the Forest Hill branch and transfer the business to Laidley, but this was reversed following protest from Forest Hill residents. The decision to remain was timely: a further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older and larger settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates. This boom corresponded with the erection of purpose-built bank premises for the QNB at Forest Hill, c1909.
The QNB, and later the National Bank, leased the site on which the bank building was erected, for over 60 years. The branch was closed temporarily on 2 February 1943, as part of the wartime rationalisation of bank branches in Australia, but was re-opened on 3 February 1947. In 1948 the Queensland National bank was amalgamated with the National Bank of Australasia Ltd, and the Forest Hill office then became part of the National Bank network.
In 1970 the leased land on which the bank building stood was purchased by the National Bank from the estate of Miss E McAllister, but the branch at Forest Hill survived only another 6 years, closing on 16 June 1976. The decision to close the Forest Hill branch after nearly 75 years, reflected a trend, occasioned by improved transport and communications, for district residents to purchase goods and services at the larger centres of Gatton and Laidley. Following closure of the branch, the land and premises were sold, and the bank fittings were removed. The building has served since as retail premises.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank, Forest Hill, erected c1909, survives as evidence of the early 20th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point and commercial centre for a prosperous agricultural district. In particular, the building illustrates the close relationship between the Queensland National Bank and the commercial activity centred on Forest Hill, prior to the Second World War.
|A restrained and economical design, the building demonstrates the priority of the street in country town commercial architecture through the elaboration of its front facade and the simplicity of the building behind. A distinctive bank image is created through the use of classical details and the discrete side entrance. The intact interior is an example of the domestic and work environments provided in early 20th century banks in smaller towns.
|A restrained and economical design, the building demonstrates the priority of the street in country town commercial architecture through the elaboration of its front facade and the simplicity of the building behind. A distinctive bank image is created through the use of classical details and the discrete side entrance. The intact interior is an example of the domestic and work environments provided in early 20th century banks in smaller towns.
|It has an important association with the former Queensland National Bank, which contributed substantially to the economic development of Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | 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 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":15427,"place_ref":600652,"name":"Forest Hill Hotel","alternate_name":"Station Hotel; The Forest Hill Hotel","street_address":"38 William Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Forest Hill Hotel is situated in the main thoroughfare of Forest Hill, built to the corner of William and Victoria Streets. It is a dominant part of the townscape in the small town of Forest Hill standing diagonally opposite the prominent Lockyer Hotel [600650]. The two hotels provide a visual focus in the town and form a major proportion of the built infrastructure in the main street.
The Forest Hill Hotel has two storeys with verandahs to each storey on the alignment to the principal streets. Constructed from timber and iron the hotel has a number of characteristics of the vernacular Queensland style. The main core of the roof is a simple pyramid with a separate roof over the upper verandah. There is a split-level timber addition on the northern side facing William Street which adjoins the core of the hotel and continues the ground floor verandah.
A wide bull-nosed street awning extends from the base of the upper verandah out to the edge of the footpath along the frontages of William and Victoria Streets and is supported by stop-chamfered timber posts decorated with capitals. It is possible that this awning was added at a later stage as a narrower ground floor verandah sits underneath this awning. The ground floor verandah encompasses the hotel and was sheltered by the original line of the upper-verandah. It is decorated with an arched timber valance with crude circular and slot motifs and features slender stop-chamfered timber posts with simple capitals and simple timber brackets. This verandah sits on a raised concrete slab and is punctuated by double French-doors along the building line. The structure and the diagonal bracing of the walls are exposed externally.
Each end of the upper verandah has been sheeted behind the balustrade otherwise it remains intact. The cast iron balustrades are identified as being the design of John Crase & Co. Foundry who operated out of Warren Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane from 1885 until at least 1902. (Turner, Australia's Iron Lace, 1985, p.85)
The interior of the hotel has been the most changed with new bars and a carpeted floor however the walls and ceilings are unchanged and intact. The large internal stairs, which were once accessed by an entrance hall to Victoria Street, have been closed off by temporary means at the ground floor level. The timber staircase displays simple timber balustrades. The stairs access the accommodation on the upper storey.
There are several bedrooms on the upper-level all of which would have originally accessed the verandah via double French-doors. The verandah doors were the only access to the bedrooms having no internal doors. The verandah acted as an external hallway. This is still evident in the layout however the rear verandah has been enclosed at some time to create extra space. The two bedrooms facing the rear now open onto an internal space which leads to a communal bathroom on the northern side of the building in the split level addition. The three bedrooms opening onto the northern verandah are still used as accommodation.
On the south side of the hotel a timber pergola has been provided to allow outdoor dining and drinking facilities. A side door and window were altered to accommodate two large doors on the southern side of the hotel. The doors are hinged to open upwards, attaching to the awning over the outdoor eating area. The doors are steel-framed and clad in UPVC boarding.
","history":"Constructed in 1898, the Forest Hill Hotel is a good example of a two-storeyed, timber, corner hotel typical in rural Queensland towns. It was established at a time of growth and consolidation in Forest Hill following closer agricultural settlement of the immediate area in the 1890s and the development of Forest Hill as a service center and railhead for the surrounding farmlands
From the 1840s to the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. At that time the Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps.
In 1865 the Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area until about 1881. At that time, the area which became known as Forest Hill was owned by Mr AJ Boyd who on first moving to the area found that the nearest form of conveyance was the railway line serving Laidley. Through intervention with the appropriate authorities, Boyd was able to arrange a siding onto his property 'Forest Hill'. Originally it was called 'Boyd's Siding' but was subsequently named for the property, Forest Hill. Boyd was the first agriculturalist in the area and cultivated an orchard on his property. In 1886 the Railway Department provided a continuation of the line beyond Laidley and a new siding was constructed one mile east of the Forest Hill siding, it too was called Forest Hill.
Also at this time, in 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres of the Rosewood freehold on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. This Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land, was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton. A further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates. The Forest Hill Hotel was erected during growth period.
By 1909 the township of Forest Hill was a thriving centre, boasting three hotels, a post office, bank and a state school. In that year, the Crown Hotel was burnt down, leaving two hotels remaining. (Forest Hill Hotel and Lockyer Hotel (QHR 600650)) The economic base of the town was the healthy agricultural community which surrounded it. The rich soils, combined with a high water table enabled extraordinary crops to be produced, several properties boasting seven cuts of lucerne in 1902, a drought year. During periods of drought this high water table served to protect the crops of many of the local farmers so that the local production remained at an acceptable level while neighbouring districts suffered.
The land on which the hotel now sits was first purchased as part of three parcels of land by Thomas Lodge Prior in 1867 comprising a total of 238 acres. The land was strategically located adjacent to the new railway station. After a series of complex transactions the land was subdivided and in 1888 Henry Chapman purchased Subdivision 1 of portion 47. Ten years later the land was sold to James Campbell who took out mortgages totalling £480 over the ensuing months. In 1900 a lease was registered to the Castlemaine Brewery, confirming that a hotel was, by this time, present on the land. A series of lessors undertook the management of the hotel over the ensuing years. In 1941 James Campbell died and the hotel passed to his widow, Margaret. Margaret, in her turn, passed the land to Charles Joseph Heenan and Kathleen Mary Heenan in 1948 who subsequently sold the place in 1951. Three years later the place was again sold, this time to Edward Walston Toohey and Muriel Mary Toohey who transferred the property to Joseph Conleth Carroll and Jean Carroll in 1955. In 1975 the property again changed hands with Ian William Wiseman and Margaret Betty Wiseman as joint tenants. Two years later the property passed to William Morris Graham, Dorothy Margaret Graham, Arthur Hugh Mears and Dulcie Margaret Mears. In 1980 the Grahams bought out the Mears' share and sold the property to the present owners in 1989. The property description was altered to Lot 1 on RP7905 in 1982.
During the years since the hotel was constructed numerous alterations have occurred in the interior, reflecting changing technologies and the desire of lessors to ensure that the hotel met the requirements of the public. The most recent alteration occurred in 1993, when the lessor undertook renovations to provide access to a side pergola or beer garden.
Prior to around 1940 the Forest Hill Hotel was known as the Station Hotel.
","criteria":"The Forest Hill Hotel in Forest Hill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the late 19th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point for the surrounding agricultural district.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a two-storeyed, single-skin timber hotel of the 1890s in rural Queensland.
|The Forest Hill Hotel makes an important aesthetic contribution to the character and townscape of the town as one of the most prominent and distinctive buildings in Forest Hill that is valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15428,"place_ref":600653,"name":"Exchange Hotel","alternate_name":"The Exchange Hotel","street_address":"134 - 138 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Exchange Hotel, a two-storeyed brick building with corrugated iron skillion roofs concealed behind parapet walls, is located fronting Patrick Street, the main street of Laidley, to the west. The building has been built to the property alignment on the north, west and south, and has a T-shaped plan with a long projecting central wing to the rear.
The street elevation is constructed of flemish bond brickwork and has a wide awning to the ground floor and a semi-recessed verandah to the mid-section of the first floor. The verandah has a raised central gable section, with timber battens to the gable and arched timber valance, over a corrugated iron skillion awning. The verandah has paired timber posts with curved timber brackets, timber louvres enclosing the southern end, and cast iron balustrades. Opening onto this verandah are french doors with fanlights from bedrooms, and a central arched timber door, sidelights and fanlight assembly from a main hall. Either side of the semi-recessed verandah are projecting brick bays housing paired casement windows with timber and iron hoods, and surmounted by arched parapets with rendered cornice details and circle motif.
The corrugated iron skillion awning to the ground floor has paired timber posts to the central section, with triple timber posts either side, curved timber brackets and a solid valance for signage. The main entry is via a large arch to the north side of centre which accesses a recessed entry porch with a tiled floor, concrete balustrade and arched timber door, sidelights and fanlight assembly. The public bar is accessed via a timber and glass door with fanlight at the south, and a separate entrance to the lounge area is located to the north. The building has sash windows with arched headers, and the street facade has rendered details including sills, main entry arch and balustrade, and a deep skirting base. The first floor bridges a driveway on the south side of the building which services the rear of the property. The brick wall facing the driveway is painted, as is the single-storeyed brick annex containing toilets and storage areas at the rear.
The central rear wing, constructed of english garden wall bond brickwork, has had a number of alterations including bricked-in openings and exhaust ducting. Small verandahs are located at the rear of the front section on the north and south. The south verandah has been enclosed, and the north has a timber stair and french doors with fanlights opening from bedrooms.
Internally, the ground floor has a central hall leading to the rear dining and kitchen area, a public bar on the south and a lounge on the north. The building has rendered walls, boarded ceilings, and a timber staircase with turned balustrade and newel posts. The public bar and kitchen have been recently refitted, and the lounge and dining area have undergone earlier alterations.
The first floor has a wide central hall leading to the west verandah, and accommodates bedrooms to the front section of the building and a private residence in the rear central wing. Walls are of single-skin vertically jointed boards, ceilings are boarded and doors are panelled with fanlights.
The northern boundary wall is reported to have been over the southern wall of the adjoining property, which had been built slightly over the property boundary.
","history":"The Exchange Hotel at Laidley, a two-storeyed brick building, was constructed in 1902 for publicans Julius and Hansine Jocumsen, and replaced an earlier hotel of the same name on the site. It was erected during one of the most significant growth periods in Laidley's history, and although modest in size and scale, reflects in style and materials the confidence and optimism of a small, prosperous, turn-of-the-century country town.
Laidley was established in the 1850s as a transport stop along the main dray route from Brisbane and Ipswich to Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, and following the late 1850s subdivision of the Lockyer Creek floodplains, developed as the centre of a small agricultural district. A village of Laidley, located on the rise just south of the present town, was surveyed in 1858. In the mid-1860s the Southern and Western Railway was constructed about a mile to the north of the village, at which time a second survey of Laidley town blocks, this time near the proposed railway station, was undertaken in 1865. A small township developed around Laidley station during the construction of the railway, but after the gangers moved on or took up farms in the district in the late 1860s, this township consisted of little but the two-storeyed iron station building, and Laidley village to the south remained the principal town.
From the mid-1870s, however, the area around the Laidley railway station gradually became the focus of an expanding and increasingly prosperous agricultural district, and by the early 1890s had a population of over 600. The first Exchange Hotel, a single-storeyed timber building erected c.1876 for local farmer and storekeeper Frederick Chambers, was one of the earliest buildings in the relocated town. Chambers acquired title to the site in October 1877, and the property was retained by him, and later his wife Mary, until transferred to the Royal Bank of Queensland Ltd in 1895. In February 1896, title passed to Laidley storekeeper, produce merchant and publican August Giesemann, and then in early 1900 to Hansine Jocumsen, who had acquired the license in 1898.
From 1 December 1901, publican William Bergland, formerly a supervisor at Peter Murphy's Transcontinental Hotel in Brisbane, took out a 10 year lease of the Exchange, Laidley's oldest hotel, and paid £1,100 for the goodwill and furniture. When reporting this on 28 November 1901, the Queensland Times also commented that: It is Mr Jocumsen's intention to erect a large brick building in the near future, the present structure being decidedly out of keeping with the increase of business.
At the turn of the century, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in a flurry of building activity in Laidley, which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber structures replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel (1902) (QHR 600653), Nielson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Giesemann's buildings (1902), Whitehouse's Bakery (c1904) (QHR 600656), and Wyman's new store (1906) (QHR 600654). As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
In March-April 1902, architects Eaton & Bates, with offices in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Mount Morgan, Longreach, Clermont, Gladstone, Maryborough and Townsville, called tenders for the erection of a two-storeyed brick hotel at Laidley for Mrs Hansen (sic) Jocumsen. Eaton and Bates were experienced designers of rural hotels, including the Normanby at Rockhampton (1890s), the Great Western and Imperial hotels at Longreach (both erected 1898-99), the Royal Hotel (QHR 600700), Maryborough (1901), and the famous Queen's Hotel (QHR 600936) at Townsville, the first two stages of which were erected 1902-04.
In May 1902 Mrs Jocumsen raised a £2,000 mortgage on the property, and it is likely that this financed the construction of the new Exchange Hotel. The building was close to completion by late September 1902, and was finished by late November that year, when Bergland re-negotiated his lease on the new building.
When completed, the Royal Bank of Queensland, which had opened a Laidley branch north of the railway line c1890, occupied premises on the ground floor of the new hotel. The Royal Bank had been established in Brisbane in 1885 as a competitor to the enormously successful Queensland National Bank, and was the second bank to open an office in Laidley, the first being the QNB on 16 July 1886. These were still the only banking institutions in Laidley in 1902 when the new Exchange Hotel was erected. The branch office in the Exchange Hotel became an office of the Bank of Queensland following the merger of the Royal Bank and the Bank of North Queensland (established in Townsville in 1888) in 1917. In 1922, the Bank of Queensland was taken over by the National Bank of Australasia, and the Exchange Hotel office again changed name. The National Bank maintained its Laidley branch office in this building until 1956.
Between 1904 and 1924 the hotel was owned by the Giesemann family, who let the business to a number of lessees. In August 1924, the property was transferred to James King of Laidley, who bought the Exchange following the destruction by fire of his own Laidley hotel, the Empire, that year. The Empire was almost opposite the Exchange, and the latter received some fire damage to the front façade. Until 1950, the Exchange remained the property of the King family, who also ran the hotel until 1949, but there have been a number of owners and even more lessees since.
","criteria":"The Exchange Hotel was constructed in 1902 during one of the most significant growth periods in Laidley's history, and reflects in style and materials the confidence and optimism of one of Queensland's most prosperous, turn-of-the-century country towns.
|It survives as a substantially intact example of the work of respected Queensland architects Eaton & Bates, in rural hotel design. The building is significant also for the retention of evidence of the former banking office located within the hotel.
|The Exchange Hotel, possessing a finely articulated street elevation consisting of recessed and projecting awnings, bays, entrances and verandah, is the dominant member of a group of masonry commercial buildings constructed in Laidley at the turn of the century.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | 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 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":15429,"place_ref":600654,"name":"G Wyman Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"140 - 142 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wyman's clothing store is located on the eastern side of Patrick Street in Laidley in a precinct of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings in the centre of Laidley. It is a single storey, brick building with a decorative rendered, masonry parapet and an iron bullnosed awning extending over the footpath supported by timber posts with decorative capitals and brackets. Below the awning, the front elevation has large glass display windows framed in timber which flank a central entrance way from the footpath.
Above the awning a rendered parapet rises above the roof line displaying the inscription in relief, 'G. Wyman Estd. 1883', and above on a semi-circular pediment, 'A.D. 1906'. The parapet is part of a continuous line of masonry facades which run along this part of Patrick Street presenting a coherent streetscape.
The interior of the store displays many of the original features in a large open-planned space. These include high coffered ceilings with diagonal boarding and ceiling roses, numerous chamfered timber columns with capitals and decorative cast iron vents in the walls. Most notable is the original timber service counter which stands free in the centre of the store. The counter is a large square with space in the middle for attendants. The counter features diagonal boarding and decorative pilasters and wide bench space.
There is a small partitioned office in the north-east corner of the store and some fitting rooms on the south east corner. The floor is covered with linoleum and the walls are still face brick painted white. There is evidence of former window openings on the northern wall which have been enclosed.
","history":"The G Wyman Building is a two storey brick building with an iron awning extending across the footpath, supported on timber posts. The building was constructed in 1906 during a period of economic prosperity in Laidley and it was the second building that George Wyman had constructed on the site, replacing a former timber structure established in 1883. The architect of the building is unknown.
At the turn of the century, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in the flurry of building activity in Laidley which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber buildings were replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel in c.1902 (QHR 600653), Neilson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Geismann's buildings (1902) , Whitehouse's bakery in 1904 (QHR 600656), as well as Wyman's new store in 1906. As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
George Wyman was a prosperous and active member of the community at Laidley. Born in Middlesex, England, his parents emigrated to Australia while he was still an infant. He learned the grocery business while employed by Cribb & Foote at Ipswich, and owned a business there for several years. His brother, Henry, was a noted Ipswich architect who served as Mayor of Ipswich between 1894-96.
George Wyman established himself at Laidley in 1883. Here he was very successful and married Ruth White, the daughter of Mr B White of Laidley, producing one son and two daughters. Ruth and George acquired adjoining blocks of land in Patrick Street, Laidley in 1884. The land was adjacent to the Exchange Hotel and handily situated in relation to the railway line. In February 1884 the previous owner of George's block, Mr R Little, had taken out a mortgage on his land for £900, possibly to develop the land for commercial purposes. There is no record of a mortgage against the property during Wyman's occupation of the site. The adjacent block appears to have been gifted to the newly- weds in Ruth's name by her father, Benjamin White.
Here George carried on his business for many years in a timber building, taking an active role in the social life of Laidley. Newspaper reports indicate he was involved in many of the activities of Laidley, and his wife acted as hostess to social evenings in their home. The 1890 Post Office Directory lists George as produce merchant, grocer, general storekeeper and draper, as well as being Hon. Secretary of the Laidley Agricultural Society and President of the Laidley Cricket Club. In addition he served his community as a justice of the peace. In 1902 George was elected Mayor of the first Laidley Town Council in which capacity he served for twelve months. In August 1906, Wyman purchased 29 hundredths of a perch from Heinrich Geismann, proprietor of the neighbouring Exchange Hotel, for the purpose of constructing a party wall. This transaction marks the construction of his new, brick store which encompassed each of the blocks owned by his wife and himself. The timber from the demolished timber structure was used in the construction of a house at 22 Railway Street, Laidley. By 1907 Wyman also had a store in nearby Forest Hill which was eventually sold to Tom Waller in 1927.
In 1911 George Wyman died and his property passed in trust to his widow and his daughter, Ada Ruth. The property remained in trust, passing in turn to other descendants until 1971 when Wyman's Pty Ltd became the owners. At the time of George Wyman's death his son Charles took over running the business. Wyman's Store had traditionally sold groceries, hardware, ironmongery, clothing and dressmaking and hat-making services and at this time it opened a petrol depot with the rise the motor cars. During the beginning of the 20th century Wyman's employed 22 shop staff including trained drapers and milliners.
In 1939 Charles Wyman died and the business was leased to Mr W Blake until Charles' son Trevor took charge of the business in 1950. At this time the sale of general goods was not economically viable and the Wyman's began to specialise more in drapery and millinery.
Another store was opened in Gatton in 1958 and Trevor's son David started in that store in 1964 and his other son Ross started in the Laidley store in 1971. David and Ross Wyman continue to run each store today.
The store remains remarkably intact. One major change which has occurred was the removal of the mezzanine floor at the rear of the store which housed the former millinery section. Along with this a large 'flying-fox' winch device used to move goods around the store was also removed in the latter 20th century.
","criteria":"Wymans Store is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as it is a good representative of the important role of the country general store in providing services in rural communities. It's construction around 1906 also reflects a period of renewed building activity and economic solidification in the town of Laidley, a trend common in many rural towns in Queensland at the time.
|The place is a good and intact example of a large country general store providing necessary services to a rural community. It's open plan design, large shop front windows and original central service counter all contribute highly to its identity as an early 20th century store.
|The place has high aesthetic value as it contributes strongly to the streetscape of Patrick Street in Laidley. It displays typical design and decorative features of its type which add to the aesthetic significance of the building.
|It also has special association with the community of Laidley as a local landmark which contributes greatly to their townscape and as a continuing place of service for over a century.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of Mr G Wyman, Mayor of the first Laidley Town Council when Laidley became a separate local government area, as well as three subsequent generations of his family who continue to run the store today.
","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":15431,"place_ref":600656,"name":"Whitehouse's Bakery (former), Laidley","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"91 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former bakery building stands on the Western side of Patrick Street and forms part of a group of substantial late nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial buildings within the main precinct of Laidley township.
The former bakery is a two storey, red face brick building with large shop front windows on the ground floor to Patrick Street and a narrow verandah on the upper floor with cast iron balustrade panels and an awning over the footpath. The building has a hipped roof structure with decorative parapet displaying art-nouveau characteristics on the façade. There are two single storey structures of the same brick at the rear.
The ground floor Patrick Street elevation displays four chamfered timber awning posts symmetrically placed framing the openings along the front face brick wall. There are two large shop front display windows with an angled bay design. These windows flank a central doorway surmounted by a rectangular fanlight, a former public entrance to the bakery service area. Another doorway, surmounted by an arched fanlight, stands at the northern end of the front elevation, a private entry to a separate room.
The upper level elevation displays decorative cast iron balustrade panels which were first patented in Victoria by A. Maclean in 1877 [Turner, p182]. The verandah is under a separate convex, corrugated-iron, awning supported by four slender timber columns with simple capitals at the top, and the edges of the awning are decorated by a cast iron frieze.
The Anglo-Dutch parapet [Apperly, p114] is surmounted with three spherical finials and the central pediment displays in relief the year '1905'. Two pilasters extend from below this central pediment and are each decorated with rectangular blue tile inserts and they flank a decorative geometrical motiff in the centre of the parapet. On either side of the pilasters a curved line eminating from the curved edge of the parapet culminates in a scroll at the middle of the pilasters. There are two shorter pilasters at either end of the parapet which also display blue tile inserts. The general decorative appearance of the parapet is of an art-nouveau style. The front wall of the verandah is also of face brick and has three double french doors with rectangular fanlights.
The sides of the building have sash windows to both levels and along the stuctures at the rear.
The two storey section of the bakery has an attached single storey brick room with skillion roof on the rear southern corner (formerly a preparation room for the bakery). This structure is accessed by a door on the northern side which lands on a patio area constructed of original bricks from different portions of the building. These bricks display heart-shaped frog marks. This structure, although attached to the main building, has no internal access to it. A second detached structure stands directly to the rear of the first and is connected only by a breezeway. This second structure has a hipped roof and is accessed by a door from the breezeway. It has a large chimney at the rear of the building which serviced two large bread ovens. Internally the iron doors to these ovens are still in situ on the rear wall, however, the brick interiors of the ovens which protruded externally out of the rear wall are in ruins.
The interior of the two storey section of the bakery is characterised by timber floors, high ceilings and timber VJ or rendered brick internal walls . There are four rooms on the ground floor. The former servery is a large rectangular room running parallel to Patrick Street. The wide timber floor boards are bowed at the northern end of the room from the constant weight of people tending the service counter which once stood in this position.
Next to this room is a smaller room running perpendicular to Patrick Street. Directly behind this room is another of the same dimensions. The largest room is located centrally in the rear portion of the building and contains a large timber staircase to the upper level. The timber balustrades on the staircase are of an unusual decorative design.
The upper level contains three bedrooms and one bathroom. Two of the bedrooms have access to the front verandah via the french doors. The internal doorways have rectangular fanlights with decorative timber fretwork. The walls and ceilings are of timber VJs and all of the rooms have ceiling roses. The interior and exterior of the building and out-buildings is remarkably intact.
The bakery is set within a small garden with mature plantings surrounded by a timber fence. A large palm tree on the north east corner of the building would be of considerable age.
","history":"The former Whitehouse's Bakery building at Laidley is a substantial two-storey, brick building which was constructed around 1904-1905 for local farmer, baker and confectioner, Charles James Whitehouse. It was the second bakery building CJ Whitehouse had built on the site since he bought the land in 1885, replacing a former timber structure. The architect for the building is unknown.
At the time the present bakery was constructed, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in the flurry of building activity in Laidley which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber buildings replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel (c.1902) (QHR 600653], Neilson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Geismann's buildings (1902) and Wyman's new store in 1906 (QHR 600654) as well as Whitehouse's bakery. As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
The land on which the bakery was constructed was subject to some very rapid land transactions in 1885. On 3 July the original 1860 land grant to James Fletcher was seized to Isabella Fletcher. On the same day a portion of that land was sold to Charles Nathan Schureck who subsequently purchased several other blocks of land in the subdivision. One month later, on 4 August, 1885 the land was sold to Charles James Whitehouse.
Charles James Whitehouse came to Laidley by a circuitous route from his birthplace in London in 1840. As a youth he was apprenticed to an Indian Merchantman in which he sailed to India, spending time in Calcutta during a mutiny on the vessel. He travelled to St Helena, Mauritius, New Caledonia and Melbourne where he obtained work at Mordialloc. Later he obtained work in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales as a miner and farmer. In 1867 Whitehouse married Sarah Ann, the daughter of a Mr White of Laidley by whom he had two daughters and four sons, one of whom died in infancy. For eighteen years he worked with the Queensland Railways as an engine driver, and in 1885 established a business in Laidley as a baker and confectioner. For a time he worked the 600 acres of land he had purchased at Laidley before handing it over to the care of a bailiff in order to concentrate on his business as a baker and confectioner for a period of eleven years. His business was conducted from Patrick Street. He retired to his farm at the age of 64 years and had virtually handed over responsibility for the farm to two of his sons, CJ (jnr.) and Benjamin. The farming business, like many in the district, was devoted principally to the production of lucerne-growing and dairying.
According to the testimony of Alice Maud Mann (a longstanding owner of the bakery), Whitehouses's bakery was significantly damaged during the floods of 1893 and subsequent to this blow CJ Whitehouse requested Edward Mann to take-over the running of the bakery business. In 1904, CJW's son, Benjamin, aged 26 years, undertook the management of the bakery in Patrick Street, Laidley, around the time of construction of the new two-storey brick establishment by his father at the Patrick Street address where the original bakery had once stood. It is interesting to note, however, that the 1906 Post Office Directory (QPOD) still listed only one baker in Laidley, an Edward Mann. The 1910-11 QPOD listed Benjamin Whitehouse as the baker but it is reported that Edward Mann was the actual baker and resident at the Patrick Street Bakery.
Charles James Whitehouse died on 22 November 1920 and the property passed to his two sons, CJ Whitehouse Jnr and David Hansford Whitehouse. The property had been in the Whitehouse family for some sixty five years before being sold to Jack Mann in October 1950. Jack Mann was the son Edward Mann and had previously been lessor of the property when it was in the ownership of Charles MacDonald Whitehouse, grandson of the original owner. On the death of Jack Mann in 1988 the property passed to his wife Alice Maud Mann who continued to reside there until 1995. According to Alice Mann she and Jack Mann had been associated with the bakery for a total of 67 years
Alice Mann also states that the bakery was damaged two more times by floods in 1959 and in 1974 when the external ovens at the very rear of the property were damaged beyond affordable repair. The remains of these brick ovens are still on the property.
Alice Mann ceased residing in the bakery when the property was sold to Ruth Brunton, Alice's sister-in-law. The property then passed out of the family and was sold to Julie Brimblecombe. At this stage the former bakery building was used as an arts and crafts space. In the beginning of 2001 the building stood vacant.
In June 2001 major reconstructive work was undertaken on the southern wall of the kitchen section of the building which was funded by an EPA Heritage Grant. The wall which was demonstrating major cracking and leaning was dismantled brick by brick and reconstructed with the original bricks to the original design.
The last transfer of ownership was to Mr Geoffery Hand in September 2001 and at that stage was still vacant.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as the substantial nature of its construction around the beginning of the 20th century reflects a period of renewed building activity and economic solidification in the town of Laidley, a trend common in many rural towns in Queensland at the time.
|The former bakery building is a good example of its type displaying many of the original characteristics of a turn-of-the-century bakery. The brick ovens and associated physical infrastructure of the bakery are still in situ providing a clear picture of the processes associated with the production of bread.
|The former bakery has important aesthetic value as a prominent, well composed building in the centre of Laidley which contributes highly to the streetscape of the main street, Patrick Street. Its design and decorative features together with the surrounding garden, in particular the mature palm tree on the north-east corner of the block, all contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|It also has special association with the community of Laidley as a local landmark and a place of service for nearly a century.
|The place has a long association with the life and work of two Laidley families, the Whitehouse and Mann families, who were directly involved with the construction and running of the local bakery and as such were important members of the Laidley community since its very early days.
","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":15432,"place_ref":600657,"name":"Corduroy Road Remains, Laidley","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba-Ipswich Road","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The corduroy road remnants are located on the Old Toowoomba Road between Head Road and Mulgowie Road, 1km southwest of Laidley. While the exact extent of the corduroy road cannot be determined, it is possible that it originally extended across current freehold properties adjacent to the Old Toowoomba Road.
Corduroy roads in general were constructed by overlapping full or half rounds of logs transversely and commonly used in swampy areas to stabilize road foundations. Gravel was sometimes used to seal the surface and due to the surrounding conditions corduroy roads were often covered by mud. The corduroy road at Laidley remains buried below 100-200mm of soil, making an assessment of its current physical condition impossible. In 1976, a section of wood from this road was forwarded to the Department of Forestry for investigation. It was revealed that the logs used were grey ironbark (Eucalyptus drepanophylla), a species in plentiful supply nearby, and that some deterioration of the wood had occurred owing to wet rot and termite attack.
","history":"The remains of the corduroy road at Laidley are located on the former main dray road between Ipswich and Drayton. It was constructed from grey ironbark (Eucalyptus drepanophylla) logs and dates most likely from the 1850s or 1860s. The remnant corduroy road has not been surveyed to determine its exact extent and it remains unexposed.
In the 19th century, the road between Ipswich and Drayton was one of the main roads of the Moreton Bay district. It was established in the 1840s as a bridle track between head stations, but soon became the principal route for wool drays and supplies, and by 1852 was listed by the New South Wales government as the only first-class road in the Moreton Bay area. Just four years earlier, however, it was described as being in a "wretched condition' and by 1859 very little had changed with the Darling Downs Gazette pointing out that "the road of Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was a bowling green" in comparison to the Ipswich to Drayton route. This was not a unique circumstance, with Queensland road networks in general described as "always bad and often impassable" in the Statistical Register of 1860. With a constant lack of money and a decentralized system of road administration it would be some time before conditions improved. Road construction was expensive and labour intensive with no local authority to pay for or facilitate road building.
As settlement spread the development and maintenance of roads became essential for a burgeoning rural economy. During the 1850s efforts were made to improve the passage to the Darling Downs. At Laidley Creek the banks were graded and a low wooden bridge was erected in 1850 at the instigation of the Downs squatters. The following year, the Colonial government spent £300 in the Moreton Bay district, including £170 on road improvements on the Darling Downs route. In 1854, Phillip D. Vigors was appointed by the New South Wales government as Surveyor of Moreton Bay Roads and instructed to oversee the construction of a trafficable road from Brisbane through Ipswich to Drayton. The work was painstakingly slow and when Vigors resigned in 1856 he reported 'there is abundant work for the next year at least for two surveyors to do nothing but survey and mark the roads in the district". More money was injected into road development in the Laidley area in May 1857 when the Brisbane Board of Works allocated £500 to build a bridge over Laidley Creek - a project completed 6 years later. It seems most likely that it was during this period of development in the 1850s and 1860s that the corduroy road was constructed.
The practice of building corduroy roads was common in Europe by the 18th century and was also a common form of construction in America during the post-colonial period. It involved overlapping full or half rounds of logs together transversely and was used in swampy areas as a cheap and simple method of stabilizing road foundations. With the scarcity of labour and financial resources in colonial Queensland, corduroy roads became an important and viable means of dealing with poor road conditions. Moreover, their simple method of construction meant that the employment of an engineer was not required as was the case with the more advanced and more expensive practice of building plank roads, as delineated in 1852 by Captain Payne, a former Royal Engineer, and as tabled in the New South Wales Legislative Council the following year.
In the Laidley region, bad road conditions remained a continuing problem until surfaced roads were laid. In 1893 a report in the Queensland Times outlined the frustration of Laidley farmers who "were prevented from conveying [their crops] . . . to market on account of the heavy and boggy nature of the roads, caused by the excessive rainfalls". As early as 1859 the area where the remains of the corduroy road are located was described by a surveyor as "lightly inundated" owing to its flatness. With a plentiful supply of gum and ironbark nearby, it was an ideal and necessary location for a corduroy road.
While corduroy roads were an effective means of traversing a quagmire, they were far from perfect. With rudimentary suspension systems in coaches of the day, travellers found corduroy sections to be far from comfortable. They were also subject to the kind of disrepair that made travel more precarious, as Nehemiah Bartley noted in his reminiscences of his business trips of 1854-55 to the Darling Downs in Opals and Agates: "The next day I had to tackle the scrub on the 'Spicer's Peak' Gap. This road . . . had been at one time paved with thick pine logs - a 'corduroy' road, in fact - and, while it lasted, all was well. But, the place was naturally almost a bottomless morass, full of springs; the logs had rotted in the middle, and the sound ends titled up in all directions; a lovely chevaux de frise. It was an awful place for horse, bullock, or vehicle of any kind, to face, the titled logs adding to the pitfalls of the boggy ground".
While the corduroy road at Laidley remains unexposed it is not possible to determine the condition in which it now exists. A proposal to have the road surveyed and researched with a view to exposing a small section for public viewing was discussed by the Laidley Shire Council in the 1970s, but to date no further action has been taken.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history insofar as it provides evidence of the earliest development of road networks in the Moreton Bay district during the 19th century and the means used by early settlers to cope with the poor condition of roads during this period. With the growth of the Darling Downs from the 1850s onwards there was a necessity to improve communication between communities and market access for farmers. The corduroy road is an example of the practical and inexpensive method employed to ameliorate road conditions in a period when funding for road improvements in the northern districts of New South Wales was limited to occasional government votes.
|The corduroy road demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places, being a representative example of a once common technique of road building which did not require specific engineering skills and was readily employed by local farmers and residents to overcome difficult conditions along supply and communication routes.
|The corduroy road demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places, being a representative example of a once common technique of road building which did not require specific engineering skills and was readily employed by local farmers and residents to overcome difficult conditions along supply and communication routes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15646,"place_ref":600871,"name":"Swansons Rail Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6km north of Toowoomba","suburb":"BALLARD","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Swanson's Bridge is located on the Main Range railway, 1.5 km south-south-west of Blue Mountain Heights and 6km north of Toowoomba, over an unnamed gully near the top of the Toowoomba Range. It is precisely located at the 154.960 km mark on the Brisbane - Toowoomba railway.
The bridge is an unreinforced concrete arch construction. The bridge carries a single 1.07 metre gauge railway and is built on a steep slope. It is curved in plan and consists of three 10.1 metre circular concrete arches, two concrete piers and two abutments. It is built to a 12 ton axle load. It is 99 feet in length.
It is detailed with prominent cornices at the bases of the arches and incised lines on the spandrel walls of a form similar to the joints that would occur in a stone bridge.
The bridge is in a remote location accessible only by rail staff. It commands a vast view over the Toowoomba Range. The bridge is still in use, is in good condition as well as being in its original state.
","history":"Following separation from New South Wales in 1859, the first Queensland Parliament met in May 1860. It was almost precisely three years later, in May 1863, that the bill to authorise construction of the first railway was introduced. It was passed in September of that year and provided for the construction of a line by the government from Ipswich to Toowoomba, Dalby and Warwick - the Southern and Western Railway as it was first called.
Construction of Swanson's Bridge was commenced in 1899 and was completed in 1900. The new Swanson's Bridge replaced a former bridge of deck-type metal truss construction built in 1867 with the initial construction of the Main Range railway. As built, the Main Range railway had a considerable number of bridges which over the years were replaced by embankments and culverts so that the number of original bridges became fewer. But in 1899 an official three year program was commenced to ease curves on the railway and replace high timber bridges with concrete culverts due to the increasing weight of rolling stock. The construction of Swanson's Bridge was a part of this program. The Commissioner's Annual Report for 1900 (p 76) notes:
Deviations on the Main Range for the purpose of easing curves and substituting earth embankments and concrete works for the iron bridges, which have been condemned as being too light for the increasing weigh of rolling-stock, have been carried on continuously by day labour. Several have been opened for traffic, including a three concrete arch viaduct.
Swanson's Bridge was the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913. The drawing for the bridge was dated 1899 although the stress diagram is dated 1905. Professor O'Connor acknowledges Queensland and South Australia as distinctive in Australia for their concrete arch bridges. He attributes the design of Swanson's Bridge to William Pagan, Chief Engineer at the time.
The bridge does not appear to have been altered since construction and is still in use.
","criteria":"Swanson's Bridge is important in demonstrating the evolution of mainline engineering practice and more importantly the pioneering use of concrete as a form of construction material on the Queensland Railways.
|The bridge is the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913 and as such is an important and good example of its type as well as being an uncommon work of railway technology of the time.
|The bridge is the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913 and as such is an important and good example of its type as well as being an uncommon work of railway technology of the time.
|Swanson's bridge has aesthetic value for its pleasing viaduct design as well as its position in the midst of the bush of the Toowoomba Range giving it a dramatic outlook from the escarpment it is built upon. The bridge has been used as a photographic location for photographers since after its construction.
|Swanson's Bridge is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in the pioneering technique of concrete bridge construction. It is the first substantial unreinforced concrete arch rail bridge built in Queensland.
|It also has special association with the work of William Pagan, Chief Engineer, who was responsible for the design of the bridge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | 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 is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | 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":16243,"place_ref":601480,"name":"Main Range Railway","alternate_name":"Spring Bluff Railway Station | Ballard Railway Station | Rangeview Railway Station | Holmes Railway Station | Harlaxton Railway Station","street_address":null,"suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"Main Range Railway Overview
\nFrom Murphy's Creek Station, the railway begins its winding ascent up the Main Range, reaching the summit at Harlaxton before descending gently to Toowoomba Station. The line follows the contours of spurs and ridges, with the railway typically set in along ascending hillsides and banks that sit to the north of the track. Responding to the terrain, numerous built features including tunnels, cuttings, culverts, bridges, embankments and stabilizing works occur along the extent of the railway. Constantly changing and frequently spectacular vistas of steep timbered hills, gullies and distant ranges extend south east to the coastal plain.
\nThe heritage boundary begins from the western side of the Murphy's Creek railway crossing, continuing within the boundary of the railway corridor as it ascends the Range, terminating on the summit at the Ruthven Street overbridge at Harlaxton.
\nThe following descriptions relate to features inspected on two site visits. Other features not inspected are likely to exist along the railway. All descriptions are arranged according to type and in order of occurrence as the line ascends from Murphy's Creek. Locations included refer to the distance from Roma Street Station, as used by Queensland Rail. The extent of the 1860s railway campsites has not been determined.
\nTunnels
\nNine tunnels occur along the Main Range Railway, bore through hillsides of varying height. Each tunnel differs in length and all feature elliptical portals and interiors lined with stone and brick. Directly outside the portals are steep cuttings that include retaining features of regular and rubble coursed stone walls.
\nTunnel 1 is located at 142.07km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 65 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. The segments forming the arch on the entry portal are of rendered stone. Set into the hill above the cornice is a section of stone retaining wall. The exit portal arch segments are of quarry-faced stone. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a lining of smooth-faced stone. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 2 is located at 142.4km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 80 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance and small rendered side walls face the entrance. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a wall lining of smooth-faced stone. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. Concrete retaining walls supported by steel posts are located outside both portal entrances.
\nTunnel 3 is located at 144.5km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 62 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a lining of smooth-faced stone. Exposed sections of the ceiling reveal a second lining of brick. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. The entrances to Tunnel 3 are marked by steep rock cuttings with extensive pick-facing and sections of stone retaining wall.
\nTunnel 4 is located at 147.25km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 161 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel immediately inside the entrance is lined with smooth-faced stone. Brick lining may occur further inside the tunnel. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 5 is located at 151.05km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 92 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 6 is located at 151.89km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 87 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 7 is located at 152.64km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 59 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. The exit portal deck and cornice is stepped. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 8 is located at 152.8km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 153 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. The entrance portal is crowned by a stepped deck with missing sections of cornicing. The exit portal has a straight deck and cornice. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined in different sections with brick and smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. A side gallery, approximately presently obscured by vegetation, is set high into the hillside above the access road that skirts the hill containing the tunnel. The tunnel is approximately 10 metres in length, 2.5 metres wide and 2.6 metres high. The tunnel is unlined but its connection with the railway tunnel is arched.
\nTunnel 9 is located at 153.85km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 127 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nCulverts
\nCulverts and drains occur frequently along the Main Range Railway. At varying depths beneath the rail, they direct water from the north side of the track, passing under the length of the railway and parallel access road and drain to the south east. The culverts and drains vary greatly in size shape and composition. Materials for culverts and drains include cut stone, mortared rocks, brick, concrete and corrugated iron piping. The following descriptions are of entrances situated on the north side of the track.
\nLocated at 135.28km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone decking and abutments. Internally the arch of the culvert is lined with bricks of varying colour, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 137.32km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with bricks, coated in scale.
\nLocated between culverts at 137.32km and 137.8km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally, the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with bricks, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 137.8km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments. The left half of the deck is missing. Internally, the culvert has a projecting base and the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with cut and dressed stone, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 140.8km is a drainway and culvert. From a small culvert with a stone deck and mortared walls, a drain cut out of rock extends vertically over the top of the rock face.
\nLocated at 143.39km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments.
\nLocated at 143.69km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched with picked stone wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally the culvert has a projecting base and the arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone, coated in scale. Outside the entrance to the culvert are stone retaining walls.
\nLocated at 144.99km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is largely obscured by vegetation and is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments.
\nLocated at 145.33km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls deck and abutments. Internally arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone.
\nLocated between the trolley shed and the platform of Spring Bluff, a wide drain with rendered stone walls passes underneath the track. Sitting above the drain is a rough timber beam and a small leaning timber guardrail.
\nLocated underneath the platform at Spring Bluff between the station building and a large clump of bamboo is a stone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments. Internally the arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone. At the entrance of the culvert are stone retaining walls. There is stonework above the abutments and timber beams attached to the platform sit above the entrance. A circular pipe draining from the station building is placed in a retaining wall of stone to the right of the culvert. Located among the gardens below the residences, a wide winding waterway, lined with sections of large rock and stone retaining walls, empties to a large circular concrete pipe, continuing underneath the track. Located below the Fettler's quarters is the entrance to a small drain, with stone walls and rough timber decking.
\nCuttings
\nA number of double sided cuttings course through rocky spurs along the Main Range Railway. Each of these cuttings is short in length, accommodating a curving section of rail. Stabilising features occur on the cutting faces.
\nA cutting is located approximately 100 metres after the 137km peg. The cutting curves to the left, is high and steeply sloping, with sides of roughly equal height. Sections of concrete rendering occur on the right side of the cutting.
\nA cutting is located less than 250 metres past the 138km peg. The cutting curves to the right, is high and steeply sloping. The right side of the cutting is higher than the left, with vegetation growing out of the face. Sections of concrete rendering occur on both faces of the cutting.
\nA cutting is located between the 147km peg and the entrance to Tunnel 4 (147.25km). The cutting curves to the right and is short and low, with sides of roughly equal height. The right hand side is more steeply sloped than the left. Curving parallel to the cutting, at the base of the left side is a low guard of steel piping. A railway signal is located at the exit of the cutting
\nA cutting is located between Tunnel 8 152.8km and Tunnel 9 153.85km. The cutting is high and curves to the right, with vegetation growing out of both faces. The right side of the cutting is higher while the left face is slightly steeper. Two sections of vertical stone or concrete walling are set into the left side of the cutting, roughly 1.5 metres apart.
\nA cutting is located between Swanson's Bridge (154.675km) and Tunnel 9 (153.85km). The cutting curves to the right and has a higher right side with vegetation growing on both faces from mid-height. Both faces pitch steeply near the base, sloping unevenly toward the top of the cutting. Curving parallel to the cutting, at the base of left side is a low concrete border.
\nRetaining and Stabilizing features
\nAs the Main Range Railway ascends, numerous retaining and stabilising features occur on hillsides and banks to the right of the track. A wide range of materials and construction techniques are evident and features are set in at different heights.
\nExtending adjacent to the railway for approximately 50 metres, terminating at QR cant sign 138.22km is a stone retaining wall. The wall is of cut and dressed stone with a quarry-face finish and is evenly coursed. The wall is set in from the base on a steeply sloping hillside with a height close to four metres. Two small rectangular metal QR signs are attached along the wall and tufts of grass grow from mid-level upwards.
\nBetween the 140km post and a culvert at 140.8km, steep high sections of rock face along the railway incorporate a number of stabilising features. Situated next to a railway signal marked 'HS 27', a drain has been cut out of the rock extending vertically from a concrete culvert upwards over the top of the rock face. Immediately to the right of the drain, close to the top of the rock face is a set in, oblong section of lightly coloured brickwork. Extending from the edge of the culvert, a sloped retaining wall begins with a short section of rubble coursed stone. The wall continues with a section of quarry-faced stonework of about two metres in height. Parts of this wall have been rendered in concrete, and a section is collapsed with exposed earth. From the termination of the stone wall, the rock face projects closer to the rail track. A low vertical retainer of brickwork less than a metre in height is set in to the rock from the base section, extending for approximately 25 metres. Some distance on, set in to an eroded face of sandstone, are sections of brickwork. The bricks are of varying size and colour. The largest section of brickwork extends vertically and then horizontally in the 'up' direction, and is surrounded by other smaller sections.
\nBetween 143.17km and 143.39km is a section of stone retaining wall. The wall is rubble coursed, less than one metre high and is set into the base of a grassed, sloping bank approximately 2.5m high. A small rectangular metal QR sign has been attached to a stone along the wall.
\nBetween a large, tiered modern cutting of shotcrete (known as Moggill's Wall and not of cultural heritage significance) and the entrance to Tunnel 3 (144.5km), a steep, high and long rock face incorporates a number of features. The rock face runs parallel to a large section of check railed curving track. The face begins with a wall of pick-faced, cut and dressed stone extending approximately seven metres high and wide. As the face increases in height, large sections of concrete rendering surround numerous areas of pick-faced exposed rock. Set in among eroded sandstone at various heights are sections of cut and dressed and mortared stone work. Small tufts of vegetation are scattered along the face. Directly outside the entrance to Tunnel 3, a high cutting of steep rock has extensive pick facing and a section of stone walling along its base.
\nBetween the 148km and 149km posts a number of stabilising features are set in to the base of low sections of bank opposite the railway. Running parallel to a section of check railed curving track is a stone retaining wall. The wall is rubble coursed, and is set into the base of a steep low bank. Much of the higher portion of the wall is rendered and there is evidence of collapse. The wall continues for approximately 15 metres, adjoining a low squared section of rock face close to the base, marked by a painted 7 within a white square. After passing a high tiered face of lightly coloured and loosely packed rock, a small low bank running parallel to a short, straight section of rail between two curves incorporates a number of features. Parallel to where the rail straightens is a steeply sloping retaining wall of brick. The bricks range in colour from orange to brown and are labelled: Campbells Redbank. The brickwork adjoins a low vertical section of pick-faced rock that extends until the next curve. The face contains a small section of cut and dressed stone and brickwork set in underneath the rock face to the base. Above the bank set into the hillside a section of stone walling is largely obscured by vegetation.
\nA large, high steeply sloping rock face between the 152km and 153km posts is attached with sections of concrete. Most of the concrete occurs along the base, with steel rods inserted in some higher sections.
\nBetween the 154km and 155km posts, set into a steeply sloping face are two sections of high retaining wall. The cut and dressed stone blocks are long and rectangular with a mixture of pick and quarry facing. A small section of rubble coursed stone work divides the two sections. Tufts of grass grow through the top half of the wall. The hillside shows evidence of subsidence above and adjacent to the walled section.
\nBetween Swanson's Bridge (154.675km) and the Rangeview Station site (155km) is a section of stone retaining wall. The wall is located on a steeply sloping face and is high set, close to the treeline. Much of the wall is obscured by vegetation.
\nBetween the 157km and 158km posts, close to the summit of the range and running parallel to a section of check-railed curving track is a retaining wall. The wall is set into the base of a steep rocky hillside and is of cut and dressed stone with quarry-faced stone. The wall extends for approximately twenty metres.
\nBridges
\nA small number of bridges exist on the Main Range Railway, each differing in length, height and materials.
\nLocated at 132.34km is a large concrete bridge that crosses Murphy's Creek. The bridge is supported by high concrete piers that widen towards their base. On top of the piers a steel girder spans the bridge. The bridge has an open deck, with the railway set into timber sleepers. A timber walkway with guardrail runs parallel to the bridge on its left hand side.
\nLocated at 135.5km is King's Bridge, a 2011 concrete bridge which replaced a timber bridge that was destroyed during the extreme weather event of that year. The concrete bridge is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nLocated at 154.960km, over an unnamed gully near the top of the Toowoomba Range, is Swanson's Bridge [QHR 600871]. It is an unreinforced concrete arch construction, 99 feet in length, built on a steep slope. It is curved in plan and consists of three 10.1 metre circular concrete arches, two concrete piers and two abutments. It carries a single 1.07 metre gauge railway and is built to a 12 ton axle load. The structure is detailed with prominent cornices at the bases of the arches and incised lines on the spandrel walls of a form similar to the joints that would occur in a stone bridge. The bridge is in a remote location accessible only by rail staff. It commands a vast view over the Toowoomba Range.
\nLocated at 157.76km, marking the end of the Main Range ascent is the Ruthven Street overbridge (Picnic Bridge). The bridge sits high above the railway, situated close to the site of the former Harlaxton Station and carries northbound traffic on Ruthven Street. The bridge is a riveted plate girder bridge, decked in concrete and supported on brick abutments with stone quoins. The features of the bridge are largely obscured by a pipework pedestrian bridge on its east face and a duplicate concrete bridge on its west face. These are later bridges and are not considered of cultural heritage significance.
\nCliffdale Quarry
\nLocated between Tunnel 3 (144.5km) and Spring Bluff Station (146.17km) is Cliffdale Quarry. Set in some distance on the north side of the railway, the rock face of the quarry is high, steep and uneven. A number of trees grow out of the face and large amounts of rubble stone sit at its base. The formation of a siding sits adjacent to the railway within a wide grassed area. A thick wall of concrete is set into a sloping vegetated bank above the siding, flanked by walls of concrete and rubble coursed stone. A large concrete block sits in front of the wall, mounted by a short timber beam attached by steel rods. A timber Queensland Rail sign above the cement work prohibits fossicking. Above the bank a large level grassed area extends to the base of the quarry face.
\nSpring Bluff Station
\nThe Spring Bluff Station complex is located 146.17km from Roma Street Station along a large level curve of the Main Range Railway. The key features of the site are located on a series of terraces cut into the escarpment of the main range, on the north side of the railway, surrounded by native vegetation composed predominantly of open eucalypt forest. A station building and platform, railway residences, timber pavilion and other built structures are placed among expansive landscaped gardens and open grassed areas.
\nGarden beds with stone terracing and beds with retaining walls of stone, timber or concrete occur on both sides of the railway. In a garden bed below the Fettler's Quarters, large white stones set into concrete form the words: Spring Bluff. A mixture of exotic and native trees and shrubs are scattered among the site. Prominent plantings include a large clump of bamboo next to the station building and a nearby London Plane tree (platanus acerifolia) (1870) with a commemorative plaque at its base.
\nFacilities for recreation on the grounds include picnic tables, a cricket pitch and a railway carriage used for refreshments. Left of the railway, adjacent to a fenced bitumen carpark, is a modern Queensland Rail residence. A crossing loop runs along the extent of the station.
\nStation Building and Signal Cabin
\nThe Spring Bluff Station building is a single storeyed rectangular timber structure, centrally positioned on the south-east facing station platform. The building is timber-framed and clad with chamferboards, except for the rear elevation, which has exposed stud framing to the shelter shed and ladies waiting room (which appear to be the earliest sections of the building). The whole is set on low set concrete stumping. A gabled roof of corrugated iron projects towards the platform, supported by curved and chamfered timber brackets with single-faced bosses.
\nThe building comprises four sections: ladies waiting room, shelter shed, office and an electric staff instruments room.
\nAt the north-east end of the building is the ladies waiting room. This has a four-panel timber door with fanlight and a sash window to the platform. At the rear corner of the waiting room, horizontal timber louvres form a window and a small door provides access at the base. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nAdjoining is the shelter shed with timber bench seats around the walls, two sets of pivoting timber shutters on the rear wall and a floor lined with timber boards. The rear wall is lined with horizontal beaded tongue and groove joinery. The north-east internal wall has vertical tongue and groove lining, with a high small hinged door opening from the waiting room. The south-west internal wall is lined with chamferboards. Interpretative and other panels are mounted on the walls.
\nAdjoining the waiting area is the office. The elevation to the platform has a sash window and a four-panel timber door with fanlight. A mail slot is inserted into the chamferboard cladding. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nAt the south-west end of the building is the electric staff instruments room, which is accessed from the platform via a four panel timber door. Internally, two red electric staff instruments sit on timber pedestals. A switch board is mounted on the wall to the right and the rear wall has a sash window. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nA World War II commemorative stone with plaque is located on the platform near the shelter shed. Above this, mounted on the station building wall, is a panel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
\nAt the north-east end of the platform is a two-lever ground frame. At either end of the platform are timber signs displaying the name of the station: Spring Bluff.
\nSet in against the hillside at the rear of the building, is a coursed stone wall incorporating the remnants of an arched brick fireplace.
\nImmediately adjacent to the station building, at its south-west end, is a detached signal cabin. This is a small square structure with a skillion roof, clad with metal sheeting, and has aluminium-framed windows. A modern water tank collects rainwater from gutters of the signal cabin. The signal cabin building and the rain water tank are not of cultural heritage significance, but the cabin houses two culturally significant elements: a steel, 15 lever frame, set into timber floorboards, and a timber-framed cabin diagram mounted on the rear wall.
\nNext to the water tank a long flight of exterior timber stairs leads to the gardens and the Station Masters House.
\nSet high into the hillside above the railway at the rear of a large landscaped area, three timber buildings, all former railway residences, extend to the west.
\nStation Master's House
\nThe Station Master's house is a timber building, sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The building faces south-east, is clad with weatherboards and chamferboards, and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. At the rear of the residence is an attached kitchen, with a broken gable roof. The kitchen is clad with chamferboards of varying widths, some up to 30cm.
\nThe main elevation has a central four panel timber door with multi-pane sash windows on either side. A separate corrugated iron roof shelters a lean-to verandah. The verandah is enclosed by post and rails extending from either side of the central staircase. The side balustrading of the verandah is filled with weatherboards.
\nThe south-west elevation has a multipane sash window covered by a metal hood. A second, unhooded window of glass louvres is partially obscured by a corrugated iron water tank, set on high timber stumps and base. A small set of timber stairs lead to a screened side door. The detached kitchen section of the elevation contains a corrugated iron stove recess with a projecting vent pipe. The rear elevation includes a hooded sash window and timber door, both with security grills. Along the north-east elevation are three hooded sash windows, smaller meshed window, a side door and a small paved courtyard.
\nThe front garden beds are bordered by timber posts.
\nNight Officer's House
\nThe Night Officer's House is a long rectangular timber building, sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, is clad with weatherboards and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. An attached rectangular structure sits at the rear of the building. The main elevation has a projecting front gable bay on the south-west corner with decorative timber infill. Beneath the gable is a large window shaded by a timber awning, covered by a small pitched iron roof. The south-west half of a former front verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards, incorporating two sets of aluminium framed sliding windows. A small set of timber steps leads to the section of open verandah and entrance, enclosed by a timber post and rail with circular timber balustrading. The rear wall of the verandah is clad in chamferboard and has two sash windows.
\nA modern timber picket fence, bordered by an external garden bed marks the entrance to the house.
\nFettler's Quarters
\nThe Fettler's Quarters is a small rectangular timber structure sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, is clad with a mixture of weatherboards and chamferboards and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. The main and rear elevations have centrally placed sash windows. Attached to the north-east of the earlier quarters is a more recent rectangular structure clad in corrugated iron, sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation has a timber door and a window with two sets of glass louvres. A similar window exists on the rear elevation of the building. A venting pipe projects from the roof.
\nAt the front of the building is a set of tiered garden beds divided by timber retainers and posts.
\nPavilion
\nLocated high above the grassed area with the cricket pitch, a winding bitumen path leads to a grassed clearing containing a timber pavilion. The pavilion is a large rectangular timber structure, open-sided and sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, and stands on timber stumps on a slightly sloping site. Internally, an exposed timber frame decorated in graffiti supports the length of the roof. Bench seats are built into the perimeter on all sides of the pavilion and the floor is lined with timber boards. The perimeter posts are fitted with diagonal braces attached to horizontal beams on the roof frame. On the south-west and north-east elevations, the posts support gabled infills of unpainted corrugated iron.
\nTo the rear of the pavilion, a timber-framed structure with three sides of corrugated iron shelter a fireplace. Nearby is a timber ablutions block, containing male and female rest rooms.
\nTrolley Sheds
\nLocated approximately 100 metres east of the platform along the railway is the trolley shed. The trolley shed is rectangular, clad in unpainted corrugated iron and sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation is filled by three bays, each with hinged double doors with vertical timber slats and internal diagonal braces.
\nTwo smaller storage spaces sit on either side of the trolley shed. To the north-east is a storage shed of similar design to the trolley shed, with a single door. To the south-west is a timber structure. The building is clad with weatherboards and sheltered by a gabled corrugated iron roof. On the main and south-west elevation are entrance doors.
","history":"The Main Range Railway, between Murphy's Creek and Harlaxton on the outskirts of Toowoomba, was built in 1865-1867 by railway builders Peto, Brassey and Betts, for the colonial government of Queensland.
\nThe Main Range, part of Australia's Great Dividing Range, was a formidable geological barrier to trade following pastoral settlement on the Darling Downs in the 1840s. An adequate transport link between sheep stations and the ports of Brisbane and Ipswich became increasingly important to enable the export of wool and the import of station supplies. A number of dray routes were used, with varying degrees of difficulty, to move goods and people across the Main Range during the 1840s. From 1847 Spicer's Gap replaced Cunningham's Gap (1828) as the preferred route in the southern Downs region. On the northern end of the Downs, Gorman's Gap was used from 1840, followed by Hodgson's Gap in 1842.
\nIn 1855 the Toll Bar Road was opened and the traffic that soon came to use this route facilitated the expansion of the settlement of 'The Swamp', from 1857 officially known as Toowoomba. By the early 1860s Toowoomba was the principal settlement on the Darling Downs, supplanting nearby Drayton as the service centre for the surrounding district. In this period, the pastoralists of the Darling Downs wielded significant political and economic power in the young colony of Queensland. This influenced the decision to initiate Queensland's railway network from Ipswich, considered the port for the Darling Downs, rather than Brisbane.
\nQueensland's earliest endeavours toward constructing a railway were through the activities of the Moreton Bay Tramway Company. The company intended to construct a tramway with horses hauling vehicles on timber rails, surveying a route between Ipswich and Toowoomba in 1861. The company failed to raise sufficient capital for the project to succeed and by the end of 1862 was insolvent.
\nThereafter, the Queensland Government took responsibility for building the colony's railways. The first Railway Bill, authorising the government to construct and borrow funds for this purpose was passed on 3 September 1863. In the lead up to the Bill, Irish civil engineer Abraham Fitzgibbon, estimating comparative construction costs of rail gauges between Ipswich and Toowoomba, recommended to the government the adoption of a light railway with a 3 foot 6 inch narrow gauge (1067 mm). The ascent of the Main Range was the principal engineering and expense obstacle for the railway to Toowoomba and a narrow gauge allowed for tighter rail curves on the Range incline. A lighter railway with extensive use of curved track meant cheaper construction costs, lessening capital outlay. After much debate, the Queensland government adopted Fitzgibbon's proposal. While contemporary examples of shorter narrow gauge railways existed in other parts of the world, none were of the length or scale proposed for Queensland. The railway between Ipswich and Toowoomba was the first use of a narrow gauge for a main line.
\nShortly after the bill was passed, Fitzgibbon was contracted as Chief Engineer, responsible for surveying the line, providing specifications and construction supervision. On 23 December 1863 he was appointed as Queensland's first Commissioner of Railways, a post held until October 1864. Sir Charles Fox was appointed consulting engineer, responsible for selecting the various components such as trains, rails and bridges to facilitate the railway. Samuel Willcox was responsible for the workforce involved in constructing the line.
\nThe construction of the line between Ipswich and Toowoomba was divided into five sections. Section 1 was from Ipswich to Grandchester and opened on 31 July 1865. Tenders were called for Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 on 24 August 1864 to extend the line from Grandchester to Toowoomba. Messrs Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with extensive world-wide experience in railway construction and builders of Section 1, were awarded the contract on 27 February 1865 for a sum of £515,000.
\nSection 5, the ascent of the Main Range from Murphy's Creek to Toowoomba was the most difficult section to engineer, involving steep gradients of 1 in 50, nine tunnels, 47 bridges, 126 curves, numerous cuttings, embankments, culverts and nearly 18 miles (32km) of track work. Extensive use of five chain (100m) radius rail was necessary to negotiate the ascent. Nearly two thirds of the line required cutting, approximately one quarter embankments and the remainder tunnelling and bridging, over a rise close to 1200 feet (365.76 metres). Section 5 was engineered in two separate stages, delineated by the current site of Spring Bluff Station. The incline from this point towards Toowoomba provided the most engineering challenges within Section 5, with work including five tunnels and three major bridges.
\nThe immense scale of the Main Range Railway demanded large numbers of skilled and unskilled workers to complete the project. The Queensland Government's immigration agent advertised in Great Britain and Germany for railway workers, offering free passage on the Black Ball shipping line to artisans such as excavators, bridge carpenters, masons and bricklayers. During April 1866 a total of 1009 workmen were employed along Section 5.
\nPeto, Brassey and Betts contracted work for specified lengths of line or engineering features to agents, who were responsible for ensuring contracts were adhered to and who in turn employed gangs of workers. Peto, Brassey and Betts also appointed an Engineer-In-Charge, Robert Ballard, to oversee construction on the Main Range. Prior to working on the Main Range, Ballard had gained experience in tunnel construction in New South Wales and his expertise in challenging engineering work, especially tunnelling, determined his appointment. Ballard's high standard of work on Section 5 (the Main Range Railway), in comparison with other sections of the Ipswich to Toowoomba line, was noted in reports soon after its completion and was considered the least expensive section of the Ipswich-Toowoomba railway to maintain. The high standard of his work on the Main Range Railway later earned him appointments as Superintending Engineer on Queensland's Great Northern (later known as Central) Railway in 1872 and as Chief Engineer for the Central and Northern railways (1882). He was granted £5,000 in the 1880s by the Queensland government for his achievements in cost-effective railway construction.
\nWith the large amount of cutting and tunnelling required, much of the labour force was engaged in heavy manual labour to remove earth. While explosives were used to blast through rock, the work relied on large teams of men excavating with pick and shovel, assisted by horse and bullock teams to move earth, which was then used to create embankments. Such work in difficult terrain carried with it a high degree of risk and a number of work-related injuries and deaths occurred along the line during construction.
\nTunnels were constructed where the terrain was too difficult to create cuttings. Two were ready for brick lining on 1 November 1865, one on 1 January 1866 and another on 13 Feb 1866. By April 1866 three quarters of the tunnelling had been excavated and work had begun on lining the tunnels. Within the tunnels, curved and straight rail, or a combination of both were laid. In addition to its two portals, tunnel 8 was constructed with the aid of a side gallery to allow boring to proceed on four faces. The side gallery is the only example of a side gallery on a railway tunnel thought to exist in Australia.
\nThe tunnels built for the Main Range Railway are among Australia's earliest. In Queensland the only tunnels predating those of the Main Range are the two built through the Little Liverpool range in Section 2 of the main line, opening 1 June 1866 (still in use). The first railway tunnels were built in Victoria on the double line between Melbourne and Bendigo, opening in 1862 (still in use). New South Wales' first tunnel, initially supervised by Ballard, was the Redbank Range Tunnel at Picton which opened in early 1867 (since closed).
\nA large quarry now known as Cliffdale was established roughly halfway up the Main Range during construction, to supply ballast for the line. In later years the quarry was furnished with its own siding (since removed) and loading area, with stone extracted from the site into the 1950s.
\nThe navvies (construction workers) and contractors resided in a number of camps along the course of the railway. From the base of the range upwards, camps included Gibbon's, Fountain's, Holmes', Main Range, Ballard's and Cameron's, generally named after the person responsible for the section of line in a particular area. The camps operated as temporary townships and bases for specific engineering projects. Bricks were being manufactured at Ballard's camp by August 1865. Peto, Brassey and Betts supplied a prefabricated church at Ballard's and buildings were supplied for community use at other camps. Fountain's, Holmes' and Ballard's camps were the most substantial, with Ballard's working population reported at about 500 in mid-1865.
\nStores such as butchers and bakers were established and fresh produce was sourced from Toowoomba and Ipswich. Numerous drinking houses, legal and otherwise, provided workers with alcohol, meals and entertainment. Although many workers were single men, around one third were accompanied by their families. The makeshift nature of the camps led to inadequate sanitation with typhoid and diphtheria causing the death of a number of infants and young children in 1866 and 1867. One murder at Holmes camp and a small number of accidental deaths at campsites also occurred. Some 22 deaths (mainly infants) were recorded at Main Range camp.
\nThe construction of the Main Range Railway took just over two years to complete. It was one of the most important early public works undertaken in Queensland and a major government investment in infrastructure. The first train to cross the Range made its entry into Toowoomba on 12 April 1867 and the official opening of the line took place on 30 April 1867.
\nThe railway soon became the dominant transport artery for the movement of goods and people between Toowoomba and Ipswich. From Toowoomba the Western Line extended to Dalby in 1868 while the Southern Line reached Warwick by 1871. Numerous visitors to the Darling Downs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marvelled at the engineering and scenic qualities of the Main Range Railway. Until road transportation began to dominate in the twentieth century, the railway was intrinsically associated with the development of pastoral, agricultural and mining industries, closer settlement and the growth of townships on the Darling Downs and south western Queensland.
\nThe Main Range Railway was one of the most challenging sections of line for enginemen during the steam era on the Queensland Railways. Despite the advent of more powerful locomotives during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the combination of sharp curves, steep grades and tunnels created difficult conditions for crews. Railway workers needed to ensure adequate supplies of coal and water to negotiate the crossing and banking engines were employed between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba to assist ascending trains. On curved sections of track inner check rails were laid to minimise the possibility of derailment after 1897. Sandboxes were placed along the line to assist wheel traction. Despite being a difficult stretch of railway to work, the Main Range line has been relatively free of major disasters. Of the fatal incidents that have occurred, the worst was the Murphy's Creek collision (1913) when six men were killed.
\nSince its opening in 1867 the Main Range line has sustained a high level of usage with various maintenance and upgrading works ensuring its continuity as a vital transport link. By 1868 excessive wear from steep grades and sharp curves was reported and some sections of iron rail were replaced with steel. From 1875 all curves sharper than 10 chain radius were re-laid with steel. In 1879 a proposal by Chief Engineer Stanley to re-lay track on the Main Range, to enable the use of heavier engines and to reduce maintenance was approved, with the work completed by 1883.
\nIn 1882 plans for a plate girder overbridge were drawn up for the Ruthven Street overbridge, at the range summit near Harlaxton. The plate girder replaced an earlier timber structure but the existing brick abutments were retained. Only a small number of railway bridges with brick abutments were ever built in Queensland. A report of the Main Range Railway line in March 1867 included a description of the brick abutments and stone facings of the overbridge on the road to Highfields. As other surviving examples post-date the construction of the Main Range Railway, the brick abutments are thought to be the oldest in Queensland.
\nBetween 1899 and 1902 the track was strengthened to support 12 ton axle loads and realigned to eliminate curves below a five chain radius, while the inadequate original iron girder bridges on timber piers were replaced with embankments and culverts. During this period Swanson's Bridge [QHR 600871], close to the summit of the range was constructed, notable as the first concrete arched rail bridge constructed in Australia. From the latter half of the 1990s to 2006, eleven timber bridges were replaced with steel or concrete drains. During the extreme weather event of January 2011, King's Bridge (timber) was destroyed and was replaced with a concrete bridge. Other than the Swanson and Harlaxton bridges, only one remains: Murphy's Creek Bridge (steel and concrete).
\nOver time, different materials including brick, stone and concrete have been used to stabilise cuttings, embankments and entrances to tunnels. Many of the culvert portals were replaced and sides of shallow cuttings removed on the south side of the track when an access road running parallel to the line was built between 1993 and 1996. More recently timber sleepers have been progressively replaced by concrete sleepers.
\nAfter the opening of the line, a number of stations and sidings were established along the route between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba stations. Stations were located at Murphy's Creek (1867), Holmes, known as 87 Mile siding until 1912, Ballard, in use by 1876, Rangeview, a public station by 1949, and Harlaxton (1884). Sidings included Cliffdale (by 1912), 88 and 95 Mile (1916) and Calobra, Commonwealth and Magoon (1942). While most of the components of these places are gone, Spring Bluff Station (known as Highfields until 1890) survives as an example of the small railway settlements that used to exist on the range. Situated approximately halfway up the Main Range, equipped with a natural spring for watering and a level section of track, Spring Bluff has always been the principal halt between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba and the only station equipped with a resident station master. Spring Bluff was utilised locally by nearby settlers and the Highfields sawmill.
\nBy 1879, Spring Bluff station included a 7000 gallon gravity-fed supply of water, passenger station and office, porter's cottage and station master's residence. The existing station and night officer's quarters are thought to date from the 1880s. The crossing loop was extended in 1911 and 1959, with its current configuration dating from 1968. By 1963 the complex also included a signal cabin, single men's quarters (now removed), fettler's quarters, and loading bank. The station building contains two electric staff machines that demonstrate the safe management of multiple trains using the main range. No train driver was able to proceed between stations up or down the range without the issue of a staff. In 1992, Spring Bluff Station was decommissioned and Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) was installed.
\nFrom the early 1900s the picturesque surrounds of Spring Bluff became a popular local destination for recreation and leisure, with an entertainment shed provided on a rise behind the station between 1907 and 1911. In addition to recreation and leisure, Spring Bluff was and remains well-known for its floral displays and gardens. Early evidence of efforts to beautify the surrounds exist in the sole remaining London Plane tree (platanus acerifolia), one of five planted in 1870. From the 1910s, Queensland Railways began promoting the beautification of stations and growing of vegetables by station staff, with competitions held for the best displays. During the 1930s and 1940s Station Master Ralph Kirsop, his wife Lillian and night officers undertook extensive improvements to the gardens, creating flower beds terraced with blue metal stone. Spring Bluff Station was awarded prizes numerous times for its floral displays and produce.
\nAfter a period of post-war neglect, resident railway workers from the 1960s were required to assist in the upkeep of the gardens. Since this time the gardens have continued to be cultivated, offering alternating floral displays in summer and spring. In the 1970s Queensland Rail began excursions from Toowoomba to Spring Bluff and these trips continue to operate during Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers in September. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Queensland Railways continued to improve visitor amenities at Spring Bluff. Work included extending the grassed area below the pavilion, addition of a cricket pitch, planting of native and exotic vegetation and lawn grasses, construction of bitumen pathways and installation of an ex-Guard's Van to serve refreshments. Since 1995 the Spring Bluff Railway Station Trust Management Committee, composed of representatives from local councils and Queensland Rail, has been responsible for the management of the site. Lion's Club members have also contributed to the upkeep of the grounds and gardens. The Spring Bluff railway complex remains a well patronised tourist attraction.
\nIn the 1860s, the ambitious construction of the Main Range Railway provided the colony of Queensland a critical transport link for the export of goods from its interior. This role currently continues, with most of the traffic on the Main Range Railway laden with coal for overseas markets.
","criteria":"The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in 1860s Queensland. As part of the main line between Ipswich and Toowoomba, the Main Range Railway ascent, Queensland's first range rail crossing, utilised the medium of narrow gauge on a size and scale previously unknown, either in the Australian colonies or in other countries. Over challenging and variable terrain and an incline close to 365 metres, the Main Range Railway demonstrates the extent of engineering necessary to construct the route, as evidenced in the substantial use of tightly curved track, tunnels, culverts, cuttings, embankments and bridges.
|The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in Queensland, as a major government investment in infrastructure to facilitate the economic development of Queensland. An immense undertaking for its time (1865-1867), involving a large workforce and a dramatic alteration of the landscape, the Main Range Railway is one of Queensland's most significant early public works.
The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's railway network and the objective behind its establishment. The Main Range Railway inaugurated the pattern of extending Queensland railways westwards from ports across the Dividing Range to assist the development of inland Queensland.
The Main Range Railway (constructed 1865-1867) was the earliest railway crossing of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland and in Australia, opening earlier than the Zig Zag Railway in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, under construction from 1863-1869. It is also believed to be the world's first main line narrow gauge railway.
|The substantially intact tunnels of the Main Range Railway demonstrate a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being among Australia's earliest railway tunnels built in the 1860s.
Tunnel 8 demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as the only example of a side gallery on a railway tunnel thought to exist in Australia.
The gardens of Spring Bluff Station demonstrate a practice once common but now rare: beautifying railway station grounds for the aesthetic appreciation of train passengers and visitors.
The Ruthven Street overbridge is Queensland's oldest extant metal rail overbridge with a length of approximately 40 feet (12.2m). The overbridge features a now rare use of brick abutments for a railway bridge. They are thought to be the oldest surviving examples of this type in Queensland.
|The Main Range Railway is important because of its aesthetic significance. The railway offers an array of different built and natural landscapes to experience. Cuttings, tunnels and other built features are a tangible illustration of the extraordinary human endeavour required to make the railway a reality. Sections of the winding railway can be seen making its way up the range. Constantly changing and frequently spectacular vistas of steep timbered hills, gullies and distant ranges extend south-east to the coastal plain.
The assemblage of landscaped gardens, railway buildings and natural setting at Spring Bluff station are a distinctive and highly picturesque feature of the Main Range Railway.
|The Main Range rail ascent is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a railway range crossing. The railway climbs from Murphy's Creek at the base of the Great Dividing Range to the summit at Harlaxton. Along the route engineering features responded to challenging and variable terrain, as demonstrated in the provision of nine tunnels, numerous culverts, cuttings and embankments, and extensive use of curved track. The line originally included the construction of 47 bridges (mostly timber), but these have been gradually replaced by culverts and embankments.
In particular, the tunnels of the Main Range Railway demonstrate the high quality of work of Engineer-In-Chief Robert Ballard, who was appointed specifically for his expertise in this field of railway engineering.
|Where locations of former campsites still exist within the railway reserve on the Main Range, there is potential to reveal information on the organisation and domestic life of 1860s railway camps in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion F | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | 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 is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16295,"place_ref":601532,"name":"Murphys Creek Railway Complex","alternate_name":"Murphys Creek Locomotive Water Tank and Tower","street_address":"Odin Street","suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"Murphy's Creek Railway Complex, which includes a station building, signal cabin, water tank, trolley shed and forkline, is located in the rural hamlet of Murphy's Creek at the base of the Main Range. Most of the complex is contained within the railway corridor, with the forkline situated north-west of the corridor, on the opposite side of Odin Street. A crossing loop runs along the extent of the station.
Station Building
The Murphy's Creek Station building is a single-storeyed rectangular timber structure, centrally positioned on a north-east facing station platform. The building is timber-framed and clad with chamferboards, set on stumps. A gabled roof of corrugated iron projects towards the platform, supported by timber brackets.
The building consists of two sections, divided by a central open shelter shed. The main elevations of both sections have a multi-paned sash window and two timber doors that provide access to rooms from the platform. The two doors closest to the waiting area on each section are four-panelled timber doors.
The south-east end of the building (which appears to be the earlier section) has wide chamferboards of 270 mm. Mounted on the chamferboards facing the platform is a timber cabinet and two small metal 'staff' boxes. The chamferboards on the north-west end of the building are of a shorter width.
The interior of the shelter shed has a ticket window on its south-east wall. Chamferboards of a shorter width line the wall beneath window height. The rear wall is lined with vertical tongue and groove boards and an entrance provides access from the rear of the building. The floor is lined with timber boards.
The rear elevation has a multi-paned sash window in the south-east section with the wider chamferboards. A small flight of timber stairs lead to the shelter shed entrance. On the north-west end, access to a room is provided via a timber door.
The east elevation of the building has a hooded multi-paned sash window. A modern timber picket fence stands between the station building and the railway line.
Signal Cabin
The signal cabin is a free-standing small timber building sheltered by a skillion roof, located close to the station building at its south-east end. The cabin is clad in weatherboards and sits on a concrete base. The cabin has glass louvre windows on its main elevation and a set of timber casement windows on its east elevation. Access is provided by a door on its west elevation. A small corrugated iron watertank on timber stumps sits at the rear of the building.
Trolley Shed
Located approximately 25 metres east of the platform is the trolley shed. The trolley shed is rectangular, clad in unpainted corrugated iron and sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation is filled by three bays, each with hinged double doors with timber battens and internal diagonal braces.
Water Tank
Murphy's Creek water tank is situated 120 metres north-west of the Murphy's Creek railway station. The water tank is constructed of cast iron, with the 1921 8,000 gallon capacity tank forming the lower element of the water storage, and a second, later tier doubling the overall storage capacity. The lower tier features decorative castings on the iron facings. The tank is elevated above the height of the locomotive tender for a steam locomotive being supported on a timber frame approximately 6 metres in height, consisting of 10 hardwood cross braced piles. The piles are marked with inspection dates, detailing maintenance work, and timber treatment carried out until 1994.
The tank is internally braced, and also wind braced externally. Unlike the water tank retained at Grandchester station, the Murphy's Creek tank features a high flow water delivery system utilising a water jib or crane. An electric pump is used to reticulate water into the tank being supplied from mains power. A swing jib is situated on the north tank face adjacent to the mainline, and is used to deliver water through a gravity-fed pipe-work system into a corresponding filling hole on the tender water tank of a steam locomotive. A canvas hose is used to direct the flow of water into the tender tank. The jib is operated manually by a locomotive fireman standing on the tender tank, swinging the jib to a position 90 degrees from the face of the tank and controlling the flow of water from the jib via a valve and float system actuated on the filling pipe. An inspection ladder is situated on the east face of the tank enabling access to the tank for maintenance purposes. A fluorescent light is also affixed to the tank headstocks to illuminate the area at night.
Approximately four metres to the east of the tank base are three concrete foundation blocks used to support the former water softening plant (now removed). A wooden sandbox used to replenish sandboxes on diesel-electric locomotives with traction on the Main Range is also located adjacent to the base of the tank. A safety fence (1996), between the rear of the tank and a large drainage ditch, is situated at the Odin Street aspect of the tank base.
Forkline
Veering from the main line between the station building and the watertank, forming a turning triangle on a large grassed area south of the railway corridor, is the forkline. A groundframe and electric release are positioned at the beginning of the forkline, which passes through a gate of timber post-and-rail over a small culvert. From the gate the railway crosses Odin Street extending in a large curve to the south, terminating at an earth stop block; and to the west, terminating at a raised concrete loading bank. A triangle is formed by a section of track that links the southern and western extensions before their termination. Trailing points are positioned on the southern and western corners of the turning triangle. The forkline sits on a raised formation.
","history":"Murphy's Creek Railway Station opened in 1867 on completion of the Main Range segment of the Ipswich-Toowoomba stage of the Southern and Western Railway. The station closed in 1992. The township of Murphy's Creek developed as a direct result of the construction of the railway station. The name Murphy's Creek was a reference to a creek named after a shepherd who had a hut in the area of the time of the 1864 survey for the Main Range Railway.
Tenders were invited in January 1867 for the construction of station buildings at Murphy's Creek.
Locomotives in the early years of operation on the Main Range had a limited water carrying capacity, and as a result water halts were required at Helidon, Murphy's Creek, and Highfields (later Spring Bluff). At Spring Bluff a 7,000 gallon (35 000 litre) water supply was created by damming a spring then gravity feeding the water to a water column situated in the station yard. Prior to the completion of the rail link, the Murphy's Creek area was referred to as a "feeding place for the engines" on the 30 kilometre range climb to Toowoomba, by a correspondent for the Brisbane Courier. Similarly, a journalist for the Darling Downs Gazette who had made the trip on a special picnic train from Murphy's Creek to Toowoomba prior to the opening of the Main Range Railway, described a water tank at Murphy's Creek for the use of locomotives.
In 1871 a goods shed was provided at Murphy's Creek for increasing goods traffic. Ten years after completion of the Southern and Western Railway, traffic on the line had increased to the extent that the station yard, track layout and buildings were considered cramped and additional room was required to pass trains, on the single line track. In May 1877 tenders were called for a booking office and platform; the accepted tenders were priced at £1,287 and £1,640 respectively. This work was completed in 1878, along with an extra siding. At the completion of the work in 1879 the water supply for locomotives was expanded with the installation of an 11,000 gallon water tank.
The station yard was resignalled in 1884. At this time according to the Working Timetable, Murphy's Creek consisted of a station building, with telegraph connection and a watering point.
In November 1884 a reserve for railway purposes was set aside opposite the railway station. A forkline, or turning triangle, for locomotives was constructed on this site in 1885. Prior to construction of the forkline, the Working Timetable made mention of a turntable being situated at Murphy's Creek. The forkline was established in response to the inability of early steam locomotives to ascend the Main Range without reducing their load at Murphy's Creek. Trains would descend from Toowoomba to assist in hauling loads and from the early 1900s banking engines were used to help push trains up the Range from Murphy's Creek. At the same time that the forkline was constructed, a timber loading bank and gantry also were built, for loading stone from nearby quarries.
The ladies waiting room and the station lamp room were both destroyed by fire in February 1887. A new signal cabin and interlocked signalling was installed in 1913, as part of the duplication work being completed between Laidley and Helidon to speed up workings on the western main line, and increase train movements.
In 1917 Murphy's Creek was closed as a watering station for trains working on the Main Range and watering stops were provided elsewhere on the line. However, in August 1921 an 8,000 gallon (40 000 litre) single tier water tank for use in emergencies was erected at Murphy's Creek, which was used by crews requiring additional water supplies running on to the Main Range section. Helidon was also supplied with watering facilities.
Water softening plants were installed at Helidon and Murphy's Creek, to soften water using lime. This was to prevent a build up of scale in locomotive boilers that would shorten the life of boilers. A sand box (shed) was also provided to store sand which had been previously dried in a furnace, as an aid for traction on slippery rails on steep grades and sharp curves of the Main Range section. The sand shed was to replenish a reservoir situated atop the boiler barrel of locomotives (sand dome), and was activated by a lever in the engine cab. Water was pumped from the nearby creek into the storage tank by a steam pump, operated from a stationary boiler.
By 1949 the capacity of the 1921 water tank at Murphy's Creek had been doubled with the addition of a second tier to the tank. The largest tender capacity carried by a Queensland steam locomotive was 3,500 gallons, and the Murphy's Creek tank held approximately three times this amount.
The use of Murphy's Creek as a station diminished with the introduction of diesel-electric motive power in 1952, and complete dieselisation of Brisbane to Toowoomba services in June 1956. Prior to the introduction of the new motive power, on goods trains up to 12 hours could be spent working between Brisbane and Toowoomba. Prior to dieselisation in 1956, over 49 light engine movements alone were timetabled on the Toowoomba-Murphy's Creek section. 83 working hours a day was taken up in light engine running and banking time on the range from the Willowburn depot. Engines would also attach to trains at Helidon or Lockyer stations depending on how locomotives were performing. The new motive power eliminated the need to run attached locomotives on the range section.
In 1963 the raised timber platform at Murphy's Creek station (similar to that at Grandchester) was removed and replaced by a ground level gravel platform and a new 14-lever interlocked signal cabin was provided with the rearrangement of signalling of the Murphy's Creek shunting yard. Steam operations on the Main Range had ceased by the mid 1960s.
Murphy's Creek railway station was closed in 1992, with the introduction of Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) along the Main Range line. This form of computerised and radio safeworking rendered the former mechanical form of signalling, interlocking and staff working obsolete. The station and associated buildings were sold to the local Murphy's Creek Progress Association in 1993. The water tank was in use prior to and post closure as a water supply for the local township, and also as an emergency water storage facility during bush fires. The water tank was retained by Queensland Railways for the use of special steam-hauled excursion trains operating between Brisbane and Toowoomba, but was placed out of use in 1994.
","criteria":"The Murphy's Creek Railway Complex is important in demonstrating the evolution of transport patterns in Queensland, in particular the establishment and development of Queensland's Railways during the steam locomotive era 1865-1969.
The provision of water to locomotives on the Main Range Railway was a critical part of the journey and the introduction of the Murphy's Creek Railway Station was directly related to its use as a watering stop.
|Murphy's Creek Water Tank is a rare and still operable water tank used for the replenishing of steam locomotives operating on the Main Range railway. Water tanks were a common and important feature of railway infrastructure in Queensland, but the majority have been demolished, sold or removed from railway property. The tank was maintained by Queensland Rail as a water supply for steam locomotives on special excursion trips between Brisbane and Toowoomba until 1994.
|In its provision of water tank, forkline, station building, signal cabin and trolley shed, the Murphy's Creek Railway Complex contributes to an understanding of steam locomotive and train operations on the Main Range Railway between Helidon and Toowoomba for a period of nearly a century, and serves as a reminder of the operation and maintenance of this form of locomotive technology.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","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"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16432,"place_ref":601672,"name":"University of Queensland Gatton Campus (Queensland University)","alternate_name":"Lawes Campus | Foundation Precinct Gatton College | UQ Gatton","street_address":"Warrego Highway","suburb":"LAWES","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-06","description":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus is located on the Warrego Highway, just east of the town of Gatton. It comprises two distinct areas: the main campus at Lawes, approximately 6 kilometres east of Gatton; and the Darbalara Farms, located approximately 5 kilometres to the south east of the main campus. The focus of interest for the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register is the main campus at Lawes; the Darbalara Farms are not included in the heritage register boundary.
The principal built portion of the main campus sits on an elevated sandstone ridge accessed via a ring road from the Warrego Highway; the remainder of the site is divided into paddocks with frontages to Laidley Creek to the east and Lockyer Creek to the north. The site has features of both a university campus and a working farm, with a mixture of teaching buildings, administration and research centres, residential halls and staff houses, recreational facilities, laboratories, buildings and structures associated with the working farms, and infrastructure such as the water tower and an early sewerage treatment plant. The earliest elements date from the establishment of the Queensland Agricultural College in 1897.
For the purposes of the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register, a number of key buildings, structures, plantings, spaces and landscape features of cultural heritage significance within the Gatton Campus have been identified. This does not negate the need for a thorough cultural heritage survey of the whole of the campus, which may reveal other elements of particular cultural heritage significance.
The buildings, structures, plantings, spaces and landscape features of cultural heritage significance within the Gatton Campus which have been identified to date are scattered across the site. For the purposes of this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register and for consistency with University site planning, these have been grouped within the areas and precincts identified in the Gatton Campus Site Development Plan 2003. In addition, the University's building numbering system has been employed for consistency of identification.
Site Layout
For site planning purposes, the University has divided the main campus at Lawes into four areas, some of which have been further divided into precincts:
1. The Core, located on the sandstone ridge above the Lockyer Creek floodplain, contains the academic, social, and cultural heart of Gatton Campus. This area includes the Main Entry precinct, Central Precinct and the historic Foundation Precinct.
2. The Core Environs, a large area on the fringe of the Core where teaching, demonstration and research is conducted in a farm environment, includes the historic Farm Square Precinct and the CSIRO Cooper Laboratories.
3. The Residential Area, consisting of student accommodation in halls of residence, single dwellings for staff and students, and recreational facilities, is also identified as the Sport and Residential Precinct.
4. The Farms, broad acre fields with some outlying teaching, research, recreational and infrastrucutre facilities, surround the Core Environs and Residential Area.
The above divisions reflect more than a planning pragmatism; they are important historically in illustrating the arrangement of administrative, teaching, training, farming, research, residential and recreational spaces within what has served for over a century as Queensland's most significant rural educational institution. Despite a massive building program from the 1960s onwards, and the re-orientation of the principal access road from the Lawes Railway Siding to the Warrego Highway, the Gatton Campus continues to demonstrate the principal site relationships established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: a core teaching/administrative/residential centre located on the sandstone ridge; farm training, workshop and service areas to the north of this; recreational facilities to the south; and the whole surrounded by farm paddocks.
Central Precinct
This precinct encompasses the bulk of the academic teaching facilities, most of which have been constructed since the 1960s, and is centred around the walkway linking the northern and southern ends of the Core area. This walkway is of significance as evidence of the former central access road through the site, and is marked by an avenue of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis] planted in 1927. Also located in this precinct is a 1968 cairn and plaque commemorating the use of the College as an American army hospital during the Second World War.
Foundation Precinct
The Foundation Precinct, at the southern end of the Core area, contains elements of high cultural heritage value, including: the Foundation Building (1897) [Bldg 8118], The Homestead (1897) [Bldg 8124], the Water Tower (1928-29) [Bldg 8149], Morrison Hall (1936) [Bldg 8123], and paved and landscaped areas including plantings of Canary Island Date Palms (1915), a memorial flagpole (1935), and a recent sandstone war memorial. To the southwest of Morrison Hall is a Chapel (1943) [Bldg 8127], and to the west of the main Foundation Precinct is the former Gymnasium, now known as Sir Leslie Wilson Hall (1899) [Bldg 8129], which has been moved to this site from the ridge above. Sited just west of the Sir Leslie Wilson Hall are two small timber buildings [Bldgs 8128, 8130] which also have been moved to this location.
The Foundation Building (1897) [Bldg 8118] is a large timber building, purpose-designed as an administration and teaching facility, in the lightweight timber vernacular of the Federation era. It is single storey and high-set on substantial timber stumps which have been roughly finished by hand. The building has expansive verandahs (12 foot) on the southern and eastern sides with those on the west and north remaining enclosed with timber chamferboards, timber casement windows and aluminium-framed windows respectively. The building has prominent gabled and vented hip roofs clad in corrugated, colorbond steel and has two brick chimneys. There are four external timber stairways with dowel balusters and timber handrails. A projecting entrance porch and entry stair are centrally located on the southern elevation of the building, aligned with what was formerly the southern [main] approach to the Agricultural College from Lawes Railway Siding. The porch is decorated with a timber arch and other ornate timber detailing. The external walls are horizontal pine chamferboards and the verandah roofs are lined with tongue-in-groove beaded boards.
The building has been partially restored. It has a central hallway. The front entrance hall and reception rooms on either side have been newly painted and have linoleum floors. Each of these rooms has a fireplace with timber mantel, and bay windows to the verandah. All internal walls are lined with tongue-in-groove beaded boards with timber joinery including ceiling vent panels and fanlights. A large reception room is located on the eastern side of the building. It has carpeted floors and groups of folding timber doors with multi-paned glass to the verandah. The north and western portions of the building remain un-restored and are currently occupied by a small kitchen area, a dining room, toilets and various unused rooms. Original fabric is evident throughout.
The sub-floor has been partially enclosed with a variety of building materials including chamferboards, fibrous-cement sheeting and timber casement windows. A large cleaners' room is located on the southern side with an entry door and several windows in the southern wall. A staff recreation club is located on the western and northern side with an adjacent paved area enclosed with timber screens and pergola roof.
The Homestead (1897) [Bldg 8124] is a low-set timber building, also Federation style, constructed as a residence for the principal of the college. It is single storey, high-set on timber stumps, and has wide verandahs with dowel balusters on the southern, eastern and western sides of the building, and a service wing to the north. The verandah to the west has been semi-enclosed with fixed vertical timber shutters. Some of the external walls are painted, horizontal pine chamferboards, whilst others are single-skin with exposed bracing and studs. The building has a multi-gabled, hipped roof, three brick chimneys and a decorative finial. Wide timber entry stairs, surmounted by a decorative gable roof, mark the entry to the building. It has substantial timber front and rear doors linked by a central hallway. A large reception room on the western side of the hall is divided by a decorative timber arch and has a skylight and a brick fireplace. The interior is lined in pine tongue-in-groove boards, the floors are carpeted and a number of the rooms are air-conditioned by window-mounted units. Multi-paned timber sliding sash windows and timber French doors are found throughout the building.
Morrison Hall (1936) [Bldg 8123] is a substantial, two-level timber, brick and stucco building located to the south of the Foundation Building. Paving and a formal arrangement of Canary Island Date Palms create a strong visual link between the two buildings. The front of the building is landscaped with raised lawn areas, low masonry retaining walls and mature Poinciana trees. The front (north) elevation of the building is dominated by a central projecting gable roof with decorative infill to the gable end, an impressive timber entry stair and substantial stucco pillars. Morrison Hall is a U-shaped building in plan. Each wing has a strip of central rooms (originally dormitories) with long verandahs to both sides. The front part of the building has a large central room, flanked by expansive internal verandah spaces to either side. This central room has a large arched brick fireplace and a series of French Doors onto the verandah spaces. All rooms on the first floor have timber floors and single-skin, timber walls. The ceilings of the verandahs are lined with horizontal, tongue-in-groove boards. The first floor has multi-paned timber casement and sliding sash windows, French doors and single leaf timber doors throughout. Offices and meeting rooms occupy the first floor.
The ground floor has concrete and tiled floors. External walls are generally rendered brick with some concrete columns and multi-paned, timber in-fill doors and windows. Most of the ground floor is occupied by the Student Union with facilities including a cafeteria area, recreation room and some meeting rooms and offices which are enclosed with aluminium framed, glass partitions. The eastern wing of the ground floor is occupied by the bookshop which is also enclosed with aluminium framed, glass partitions. A large grassed courtyard area is located at the rear of the building.
Sir Leslie Wilson Hall (1899 with 1935 extension) [Bldg 8129] is a large timber weatherboard building with a hipped, steel-trussed roof and a number of small, lean-to annexes. It has timber sash windows and is raised on concrete stumps. It is lined internally with fibrous-cement sheeting. The building was re-located in 1978 to a site between the inner and outer ring roads, a little to the northwest of the Core area's Foundation Precinct.
The two small buildings to the west of Sir Leslie Wilson Hall [Bldgs 8128, 8130] are both timber framed, weatherboard clad, and high-set on concrete stumps. They are aligned in a north-south direction. The building to the north has a hipped roof; the building to the south a gable roofed. Both roofs are clad in corrugated steel sheeting. The building to the south has early double-hung sash windows, each sash being divided vertically into two panes. The northern building has later aluminium framed windows.
To the southwest of Morrison Hall and situated beneath a tall Bunya Pine, is the Chapel (1943/1959) [Bldg 8127]. It is a small, timber-framed building with a corrugated steel sheeted gable roof, and is the remaining portion of a building erected as a morgue for the United States Army in 1943, and converted into a chapel in 1959. Externally the walls have weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous-cement sheeting above, and timber casement windows. Internally it has a concrete floor which is carpeted, and the walls are lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
The Water Tower (1928-29) [Bldg 8149] is located to the west of the Foundation Building. It has a hollow cylindrical concrete base with internal access ladders, supporting a 136,000 litre capacity main water supply tank, also concrete and cylindrical but of wider diameter than the base. The whole is approximately 20 metres in height, and being located on the highest ground on the campus amidst low-scale buildings, is a landmark, visible from the Warrego Highway approaches and from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres distant.
Farm Square Precinct [including Agricultural Place]
The Farm Square Precinct is situated to the northeast of the central precinct, within the Core Environs area. Elements of cultural heritage significance within this precinct include: Farm Square (begun 1899) [Bldg 8216], Crow's Silo (1941) [Bldg 8217], the Weighbridge [Bldg 8215], the Merv Young Field Facilities Building (former Woolshed, 1913-15) [Bldg 8134], former Dairy Factory [now a Printery] (1912) [Bldg 8131], the Hayshed (1923) [Bldg 8213], a Blacksmith's Shed (1933) [Bldg 8208], a c1900 residence [Bldg 8258]; Shearing Shed (1941) [Bldg 8230], Wool Classing Shed (c1940s) [Bldg 8231], and 6 other c1940s buildings associated with the move of the College teaching and farm facilities to the northeast of the campus during the Second World War [Bldgs 8260, 8233-8237]. Of contributory significance is the former Crowley Vale School (1916) [Bldg 8158], which has been moved to a location on Services Road. Farm Square Precinct also contains a number of mature trees which contribute significantly to the aesthetic value of the campus, including a row of tall Bangalow Palms at the southern end of Services Road.
Farm Square (1899-) [Bldg 8216] is a collection of structures containing stables, stalls, lofts and storage areas arranged around a large internal space - the square. The square has a bitumen floor and contains a horse-breaking ring and washing area. The buildings on the southern, eastern and western sides of the square contain stables, stalls, harness shed, and tool room. They are timber framed and clad in weatherboards with broad gabled roofs clad in corrugated, colorbond steel. The walls facing the square are generally half-height with a regular pattern of timber stable doors. The building on the northern side of Farm Square (1986) is constructed of concrete block and contains classrooms and office facilities. Vehicle access is provided via a gap between the buildings at the north-east corner. A second driveway is located at southern end, adjacent to a concrete silo known as Crow's Silo (1941) [Bldg 8217]. The silo is the oldest remaining silo on the campus and has a gabled steel roof.
The Hayshed (1923) [Bldg 8213] is located to the north of Farm Square. It is a substantial timber weatherboard building built in the style of an American barn with a mansard roof which allows for the more efficient use of the upper roof space.
The Weighbridge (c1940s) [Bldg 8215] is located west of Farm Square. It consists of a cast iron weighbridge set into the road and an adjacent small, timber-framed shed clad externally in fibrous cement sheeting.
The Merv Young Field Facilities Building [former Woolshed] (1913-15) [Bldg 8134] is located across Farm Lane, to the southwest of Farm Square. It has an unorthodox two-storey design that accommodated sheep-shearing downstairs and pressing and classing wool upstairs. It is a tall timber building clad in weatherboards with a gabled corrugated steel roof. It has been renovated with a steel inner staircase and steel balcony located on the upper level. It now contains offices.
The Printery [former Dairy Factory] (1912 with extensions in 1932 & 1934) [Bldg 8131] is located on the corner of Printery Lane and Nursery Lane. It comprises a collection of timber buildings with corrugated steel gabled roofs. From the 1980s it has been occupied by the campus printery. Internal walls have been re-located and new ceiling and wall linings and internal toilets added.
The Blacksmith's Shed (1933) [Bldg 8208] is located to the east of Farm Square in the Maintenance and Services section. It is a timber weatherboard shed with a hipped roof clad in corrugated steel. It is now sandwiched between recent large steel sheds.
An Early Residence (c1900) [Bldg 8258] is located along Services Road in the northeast sector of the Farm Square precinct, near the Shearing Shed and Wool Classing Shed. Is is timber-framed and clad, and is high-set on concrete stumps. It has a half-gabled bungalow-style roof, with the roof of the core extending down over verandahs on the front and rear elevations and wrapping around the sides. The gable ends have weatherboard in-fill beneath wide eaves, decorative timber slats in front of the weatherboards, and tapered and shaped timber bargeboards. The verandahs are enclosed with weatherboards to sill height and a mix of multi-paned timber casement windows [on the western side and part of the front (north) elevation] and later metal-framed windows. There is an early, one-roomed wing with a hipped roof, on the eastern side of the rear (south) elevation. There is also a later (c1940s) gable-roofed extension attached to the western side of the rear elevation. This is clad externally in chamferboards and has a corrugated metal roof. The house sits within an open, grassed and fenced yard. A number of mature trees just outside the front and eastern fences contribute significantly to its aesthetic setting.
The Shearing Shed (1941) [Bldg 8230] is located on the northeastern edge of the Farm Square Precinct. It contains a shearing shed, a lecture room for up to 60 students, wool room, a scour room, experting room and office. It is a large, low-set timber building with a broad gabled roof. It is clad with weatherboards, has timber sash windows and a corrugated steel roof.
The Wool Classing Shed (c1940s) [Bldg 8231] is also located on the northeastern edge of the Farm Square Precinct, just south of the Shearing Shed, facing north/northwest. It is a large, low-set timber-framed building of three bays, with a complex roof clad in corrugated iron: hipped along each side bay, with a central high saw-tooth roof structure above the central bay. Externally the building is clad with weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips above.
A Temporary Dining Hall and Kitchen (1942) [Bldg 8260], now staff quarters, is situated on Services Road almost opposite the Shearing Shed. It is a small, rectangular, hipped-roof building, timber-framed, and clad externally with weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips above. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Verandahs on the north and south elevations have separate roofs to the core and are enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting to sill height and glass louvres above.
Buildings 8233-8237 (c1940s) are located near the Poultry Unit area in the eastern sector of the Farm Square Precinct. The five buildings are all timber-framed and set on low stumps, with roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Building 8234 is the largest of the five. Rectangular in form, it has a hipped roof and is clad externally with weatherboards. On the north elevation the roof extends bungalow-fashion over an open verandah. Adjacent to the south elevation of this building are two small hip-roofed ancillary buildings [Bldgs 8235, 8236]. Building 8235 appears to be an ablutions block, and is set low on the ground. Building 8236 is set on stumps and is clad in weatherboards. The second largest building in ithis group is Building 8233, which is sited just west of Building 8234. It is rectangular in form with a hipped roof, and is clad mostly with weatherboards, with fibrous cement sheeting at the southern end. It has an open verandah along the west elevation. The fifth structure [Builidng 8237] is located to the northwest of Building 8234, across a gravel road. Is is a smaller building, square in form, set low on the ground and clad in fibrous-cement sheeting. It has a hipped roof which extends down over an enclosed verandah on the north elevation. A brick chimney rises above the roof on the western side.
The Former Crowley Vale School (1916) [Bldg 8158] is a re-located building currently situated at the far northern end of the Farm Square Precinct, to the west of Services Road. It is a small, timber-framed building, square in form, which rests on low stumps. It has a hipped roof with a short ridge roof clad with corrugated steel sheeting, and has wide, overhanging eaves. It is a standard Queensland Works Department design, a modification of the earlier open-air school concept. Externally the building is clad with fibrous-cement sheeting to half wall height, with banks of windows above.
CSIRO Cooper Laboratory
The CSIRO Cooper Laboratory (1941) is located to the north of the Central Precinct, within the Core Environs and east of Main Drive. It comprises a complex of structures: four laboratories, eight offices, seed barns, sterile seed store, seed storage rooms and a glasshouse. The collection of low-set buildings are predominately constructed of orange-red brick with one or two timber sheds. All have hipped roofs with wide eaves, and are clad in corrugated steel.
Sport and Residential Precinct
This precinct is located to the south of the Foundation Precinct, within the Core Environs area. Of cultural heritage significance within this precinct are three sporting ovals constructed largely by staff and students, a grandstand (1927), the War Memorial Swimming Pool complex (1950s) and the War Memorial Gymnasium (1968). The Tom Graham Cricket Oval (1931) is located in the eastern third of this precinct. The Grandstand [Bldg 8336] is located on the western edge of the Tom Graham Cricket Oval. It is a small timber framed and weatherboard structure with tiered timber bench seating and a corrugated steel, timber-framed roof with a small projecting, decorative gable roof over the access staircase. The Hugh Courtney Rugby Oval (1959-60) is located in the western third of the precinct, and the Ray McNamara Sports Oval (1965) is situated in the centre. Northwest of the ovals are the swimming pool and gymnasium. The War Memorial Swimming Pool Complex [Bldg 8145] comprises an Olympic-size swimming pool, spectator stand, and dressing rooms.
To the south and west of the main sporting facilities are a number of pre-1950 staff houses along South Ridge Road. Of particular interest are nos.8 & 15, which are likely c1920s.
At the northeastern end of the Sport and Residential Precinct is a small reserve on a separate lot on plan, occupied by Australian Defence Force Reservists.
Farms Area
There are a number of elements of cultural heritage significance located within the Farms Area. These are important in illustrating the evolution of the development of Gatton Campus.
Elements identified to the south of the core area include:
·\tLawes Siding Road (1897), the original principal access road to the Agricultural College, at the southern end of the campus. This road leads in a straight line in a northeasterly direction from the Lawes Railway Siding on the Southern and Western Railway, across the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road, to the Core Area of Gatton Campus. It is lined by an avenue of Eucalypts (planted in the 1910s) and other mature trees such as palm trees.
·\tAvenue of Trees [bean?], located south of the core area to the west of Lawes Siding Road, just north of, and at right angles to, the present Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road. Between the trees is remnant asphalted roadway associated with the earlier alignment of the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road. Between the avenue and the present Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road is a grove of less mature trees of the same species.
·\tThe CH Francis Airstrip (1966), located to the south of the Sport and Recreational Precinct, east of Lawes Siding Road. The strip is aligned in an east-west direction, and has a grassed surface.
Elements identified to the east of the core area include:
·\tLake Galletly (1950s), an ornamental lake and wildlife refuge located to the east of the Core Environs.
Elements identified to the immediate north of the core area include:
·\tThe original Warrego Highway entrance road to the Agricultural College, leading in a straight line south/southeast from the highway to the northern end of the Core, and marked by an avenue of mature trees, including Leopard Trees (Caesalpinia ferrea), Poinciana (Delonix regia), Leptospermum spp. and Eucalyptus spp.
Elements identified to the north of the Warrego Highway include:
·\tThe Former College View State School and adjacent Residence [Bldgs 8411, 8412 & 8413], situated to the north of the Warrego Highway, east of the overpass. The school building is of contributory significance, having been moved to this site from the Tarampa Road. It is a small, timber framed, weatherboard clad building on low stumps, with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The residence is a high-set timber 'Queenslander' c1910s which is also understood to have been moved to this location.
·\tA Barn [Bldg 8431], located just east of the overpass road on the north side of Warrego Highway. The barn is a rectangular, timber-framed structure with a high gabled roof clad in corrugated iron, the whole high-set on timber stumps. There are double timber swing doors at each end of the building, the doors at the eastern end opening onto a small timber-framed loading dock
·\tThe Sewerage Treatment Works (c1942) [Bldgs 8422-8426 & 8428-8429 & 8428], located along the ring road which follows Lockyer Creek around the northern farms. This complex remains remarkably intact, and comprises a number of sheds and water treatment facilities, including early circular concrete ponds.
·\tThe Pump House (c1942) [Bldg 8427], located north of the Treatment Works, on the western bank of Lockyer Creek. It is a small, octagonal-shaped, one-roomed, concrete building with an octagonal-pitched roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
·\tThe Potato Shed [no UQ number], located further north on the east side of the northern ring road. It is a timber-framed bunker with the above-ground structure clad in corrugated galvanized iron.
·\tc1930s Staff Houses and Gardens, and in some instances, just the gardens where houses have been removed, along the Lockyer Creek ring road. The mature trees in these gardens contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus. The houses are all high-set weatherboard 'Queenslanders'.
·\tThe main building in the Crop Research Unit (c1940s) [Bldg 8419], located at the northern end of the campus, on the southeast bank of Lockyer Creek. It is a long, narrow, low-set building with a concrete block base to sill height and timber-framing and weatherboards above. It has a hipped roof clad with corrugated sheeting. There is a brick chimney rising above the roof near the northeast end of the building. The whole rests on a concrete plinth.
·\tThe Dressing Shed [Bldg 8441], located adjacent to Lockyer Creek at the northwest end of the campus, above a former popular swimming hole. It is a long, narrow, low-set, timber-framed structure comprised of three sections. The middle section has a gable roof and exposed external timber framing on three sides and weatherboard cladding on the fourth wall overlooking Lockyer Creek. The walls are lined with corrugated iron sheeting. Either side of this central section is a long, narrow dressing room with a skillion roof of corrugated iron and all walls clad externally with weatherboards and unlined internally. Floors throughout are concrete. Entrance doors to each section are in the northwest elevation overlooking the creek
·\tTwo concrete water storage tanks and generator/pump shed [no UQ number], located adjacent to the Dressing Shed above Lockyer Creek. These are associated with the early water supply to the campus established in the late 1920s. The tanks are circular, of moulded concrete construction, and highly intact. They stand approximately 2.5 to 3 metres above ground. The generator/pump shed adjacent to the tanks is a small, timber-framed, skillion-roofed structure clad externally with corrugated metal sheeting. The generator/pump has been removed but the concrete plinth on which it rested remains.
·\tA row of mature exotic trees along the ridge above Lockyer Creek, located just northeast of the dressing shed. These contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus.
·\tA row of Eucalypt spp. trees on east side of the road which formerly led from the Warrego Highway opposite the earlier main College entrance, directly north to Lockyer Creek and the Dressing Shed.
","history":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus was established in 1897 as the Queensland Agricultural College. The College initially operated as a tertiary agricultural institution offering a basic practical and theoretical agricultural education for young men and short courses for farmers on specific topics, but from its inception, there was also an expectation that the College would be involved in agricultural research and experimentation. In 1922, it was re-structured as the Gatton Agricultural High School and College. From 1927, the College also took students from the University of Queensland for a year of practical experience. During the Second World War, the College was used as a field hospital by the United States Army from 1942 to 1944. After the war, it continued to operate as both a secondary and tertiary institution until the high school section was closed in 1962. In the 1960s the college began to diversify the courses on offer and the first women students enrolled in 1969. In 1990, the College merged with the University of Queensland.
The need to establish an agricultural college was first raised in Queensland Parliament in 1874 by EW Pechey, MLA for the Darling Downs. The development of scientific methods of agricultural production appropriate to Queensland was of both public and political concern and calls for a college and experimental farm continued to be made in Parliament for the next two decades. Unlike the debate over the establishment of a university which divided those in favour of practical, applied education from those supporting humanist education for its own sake, agricultural education was widely supported in recognition of the essential role of primary production in the colony. It was also seen as a means to attract more people to settle and cultivate the land and it was proposed that several colleges were required to investigate agricultural methods for the various regions and climatic conditions in Queensland.
The Queensland Department of Agriculture was established in 1887 and teaching and research into agriculture was part of its early agenda. Following a request from the Queensland Government to the United States Government in 1889, Professor Edward Shelton of Kansas State Agricultural College was appointed as agricultural instructor for Queensland in 1890. After touring agricultural education institutions in other Australian colonies, Professor Shelton advocated the establishment of a local college in his first annual report.
The Australian-wide economic depression of the early 1890s frustrated attempts to utilise the £5000 allocated by the Queensland Parliament in 1891 to the founding of a college, and it was not until 1895 that the first 600 acres of land were purchased by Peter McLean, Under-Secretary of Agriculture. The land was part of the Rosewood Estate near Gatton, which the Government re-purchased under the provisions of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894. A further 1092 acres were acquired in 1896 when the new Minister for Agriculture, Colonel Andrew Thynne, was determined to make the college a reality. The site was chosen both for its proximity by rail to Brisbane (and to the Department of Agriculture and Stock and its experts) and for its diversity of soil types. Three soil types were present on the site, providing scope for experimentation and wide cultivation experience for students. The Gatton site was also close to the greatest concentration of farmers in the colony. As the land was virgin forest, a contract was let in 1896 for the clearing and grubbing of 233 acres.
Sketch plans for the college were prepared by architect John Smith Murdoch of the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1896. The scheme comprised seven buildings linked by elevated covered walkways, in design reflecting Queensland's timber rural vernacular architecture. JS Murdoch was a talented designer, whose body of work includes such notable works as the Maryborough Customs House, the Commonwealth Bank in Queen Street (now demolished), Commonwealth Government Offices at Anzac Square, Brisbane (600932), Stanthorpe Post Office (600831) and the provisional Parliament House in Canberra. The tender of £5079 by RW Roe was accepted in July 1896 and a Foundation Day ceremony, which attracted many notable public figures, was held on 22 August. Changes driven by budgetary considerations were made during construction, including the deletion of the network of covered walkways.
Professor Shelton was appointed as the first principal and the Queensland Agricultural College was officially opened by the Governor, Lord Lamington, on 9 July 1897. The College had an initial intake of twenty-three students and a staff of six men. The buildings comprised an administration and teaching block, two dormitories, a teacher's block, a dining room and kitchen, the Principal's residence and the Overseer's residence. The buildings were timber framed and clad, with cedar joinery and galvanised iron roofs. They were orientated to face south, in the direction of the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road and beyond this the Southern and Western Railway, where College Siding was established. The road to the siding was made all-weather proof in the early 1900s and served as the main entrance to the College until the mid-1920s, when the principal entrance was re-oriented to the north and the road from the Warrego Highway. In the first six months of operation a number of sheds, stables and a silo were constructed and machinery and livestock was purchased. Of the original buildings only the Foundation Building [the administrative and teaching block] and the Homestead [former Principal's residence] remain on the site.
The establishment and operation of Queensland Agricultural College was an important commitment by the Queensland Government to agricultural advancement. The development of the dairying industry was an early priority as was the introduction of new agricultural methods and technologies. For instance, in 1897, the first cutting of a crop with a 'Scientific Harvester' to produce ensilage was watched by a 200 strong crowd of farmers from as far away as Nanango. As well as providing a basic practical and theoretical agricultural education for young men, the college also offered short courses for farmers on specific topics such as cheese making, milk testing, bee-keeping and sugar farming. The college also held short courses for teachers who were then able to offer basic agricultural education in schools across the state. The college continued to expand, with a gymnasium constructed in 1899 (now Sir Leslie Wilson Hall) and a third residential hall erected in 1908. The first two Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis], now a signature feature of the campus, were planted outside the Foundation Building in 1915. Also planted in the 1910s, during the First World War, was a double row of Eucalyptus sp.? trees along College Siding Road.
For the first 25 years of its existence the Queensland Agricultural College was the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, and functioned in isolation from the mainstream Queensland public education system. The gap between leaving school at 12 to 14 years and entering college at age 16 meant that there were no 'feeder schools' to sustain the College, and the First World War [1914-1918] further reduced student and staff numbers. By the early 1920s, the College was threatened with closure, a 1921 report recommending that the property be sold as farms and the buildings removed and utilised elsewhere.
A special committee appointed by the Governor-in-Council advised that rather than closure, the Queensland Agricultural College be reconfigured as an Agricultural High School and College under the control of the Department of Public Instruction. This was the first major change to the structure and purpose of the college, and was made possible with the passing of the Agricultural Education Act 1922 and the establishment of a Board of Agricultural Education. Agricultural subjects were incorporated into the state secondary education curriculum and the Queensland Agricultural College was re-structured as the Gatton Agricultural High School and College. Boys were accepted from age 14 for high school training and encouraged to continue at Gatton at diploma level in their third and fourth years. At this time, 629 acres of college land was under cultivation including 5 acres for research, 38 for field trials and 20 acres of orchard. Site improvements by this time included a substantial hay shed erected in 1922.
The establishment of a Department of Agriculture at the University of Queensland at St. Lucia in 1927 also had an impact on the college at Gatton, as university students were required to complete a compulsory year of practical training at Gatton. Gatton College Principal, JK Murray, had been a representative on the Faculty of Science at the University since 1917, however, closer links were formed with the establishment of the new faculty. Murray, a trained agricultural scientist, was appointed as the University's first Professor of Agriculture whilst continuing as College principal. Murray strongly supported research, and collaboration between institutions continued with the establishment of a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or CSIR (later the CSIRO) laboratory and field station at Gatton in 1930. [The CSIR was established in 1926 by the Commonwealth Government and in the 1930s established research laboratories throughout Australia to help develop Australian primary industry, including forest products, fisheries and food production.] In 1928 the College paddocks were re-named in honour of famous agricultural scientists.
In the 1920s the main Brisbane-Toowoomba Road through Tarampa [later Gatton] Shire was upgraded as one of Queensland's first Main Roads, and the farm road leading from the Brisbane-Toowoomba Road [later the Warrego Highway] to the College was upgraded as the principal entrance to the Gatton Agricultural High School and College, thus re-orienting the main entrance to the north. The avenue of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis] which extends along each side of the original roadway from the Warrego Highway and through the heart of the campus to the Foundation Building was planted in 1927. A 1936 military map, compiled from earlier aerial photographs and a 1934 ground survey, indicates that an avenue of trees extended along the road opposite the main entrance to the College, north of the Brisbane-Toowoomba Road to Lockyer Creek and a popular swimming hole. At an early period a timber changing rooms was constructed beside the swimming hole.
A spate of building activity and infrastructure improvements barely kept pace with the growth of the College following its conversion to an agricultural high school and college.
Along with their farm neighbours, one of the principal difficulties experienced by the College since its establishment had been the provision of an adequate water supply during periods of drought. After lobbying by successive Principals, a low-level weir was constructed in 1928-29 on Lockyer Creek, along with two 30,000 gallon (136,000 litres) reinforced concrete tanks on the creek bank, and a pump to force water to another 30,000 gallon (136,000 litres) capacity reinforced concrete main supply tank, or water tower, located in the campus core. The water tower has become a College landmark, visible from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres to the west. A substantial overhaul was made in 1997.
Staff and students often worked together to build or improve college facilities during this period. Their work included formation of the Tom Graham Cricket Oval in 1931, and the 1930 relocation by students using horses and tractors, of a timber grandstand, erected in 1927 on a sports ground near the site of the present War Memorial Swimming Pool, to a more appropriate location overlooking the planned new oval. In the early 1930s the Gymnasium was lined with silky-oak and walnut milled and installed by students. In 1935 this building was extended in length, new dressing rooms were constructed either side of the re-erected stage, and the interior was lined to match the existing hall. Used variously as a gymnasium, theatre, cinema (a cinematograph projector was installed in 1927, and replaced by a Movietown Sound Projector in 1931), assembly hall, recreation hall, chapel, and currently as a lecture room, the building was re-located in 1978 to a site between the inner and outer ring roads on the western edge of the campus.
In 1935 College Siding was re-named Lawes Siding in honour of Sir John Bennett Lawes, who had endowed the world's first agricultural research station in England. Also in 1935 a flagpole, presented by the Bundaberg Branch of the 'Old Boys' Association, was erected in front of the Foundation Building, between the two Canary Island Date Palms planted in 1915. After the central road through the campus was closed, the flagpole was re-located in 1985 to the southern end of what is now the central walkway.
Three more halls of residence were built in the 1930s. Thynne Hall was constructed in 1933 (sold for removal in 1973) and Morrison Hall, originally Shelton Hall, in 1936. Enrolments continued to grow, with 323 full-time students attending in 1938 when a third dormitory, Riddell Hall, was constructed. Residential facilities were stretched in the late 1930s when 106 unemployed young men took part in a year's training course conducted under the Unemployed Youths Training Scheme.
With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 student enrolments declined, but the war initially impacted little on the functioning of the College. In 1941 a shearing shed, with drafting yards and dip, and Crow's Silo, were erected. Also constructed in 1941was a new seed research unit, including offices, four laboratories and a glasshouse, barn and seed store, which were handed over to the CSIR. This facility was named the Cooper Laboratory.
The entry of the United States into the war in late 1941, however, brought a significant period of change to the College, with eighty-five acres of its land and the majority of its buildings being transferred in March 1942 to the United States Army for hospital purposes. The 153rd Station Hospital occupied the site briefly until July 1942, when replaced by the 105th General Hospital Unit. Only twenty-four students and a drastically reduced staff remained on campus. The College administration moved to the newly completed Cooper Laboratory and Riddell Dormitory was retained until September 1942 by which time temporary buildings had been constructed for the College by the Department of Public Works, in the northeast corner of the campus. The College also occupied the nearby College View State School as a laboratory from March 1942 to April 1943. In January 1943 more temporary buildings were erected for the College, which re-opened for enrolments in February 1943. College wartime work included the testing of alternative fuels and growing crops of opium poppy, urgently needed during war for the production of morphine.
Extensive temporary facilities were erected by the Civil Construction Corps for the military hospital, including nearly two dozen large timber hospital wards, interconnected by covered walkways, on the eastern side of the campus core. A large 'tent city' was established to the south of the core, serving as living quarters for soldiers undergoing rehabilitation. Existing buildings were altered to serve a variety of wartime purposes. The Foundation Building was used as both the administrative headquarters for the US Army and as a laboratory and pharmacy, its verandahs enclosed to provide more space. Shelton Hall (now Morrison Hall) was used as the hospital, its dormitories well suited for use as hospital wards, with dental services, X-Ray facilities and operating theatres located on the ground floor. In 1943 a 'U'-shaped morgue was constructed, used for the examination and preparation of deceased soldiers for transportation back to their families in the United States. In 1944 the two most northerly wings of the building were removed prior to the Americans leaving the College, and from 1945 the remaining section was utilised as a residence and later a girls' change room before being converted into a small chapel in 1959. 19,000 patients from the battlefields of the Pacific and New Guinea were treated at Gatton during the period of occupation by the US Army.
A number of more permanent facilities were also constructed during the period of military occupation, including a Sewerage Treatment Works and a Pump House on the northern side of the Warrego Highway. These are still in use.
In 1944-45 the College repossessed the site for educational purposes. Many of the buildings needed to be re-adapted for college requirements, and this was paid for by the Commonwealth Government. Twenty buildings erected on campus during the war were acquired form the Commonwealth Disposals Commission including 8 former military hospital wards, which remained in use as dormitories to accommodate a postwar influx of students and staff. These dormitories, commonly known as the 'warrens', were destroyed by fire in August 1963. The morgue and the remnants of a rubbish dump established by the US Army about 50 metres southeast of the present piggery are the only surviving features associated with the American occupation of the campus. A cairn and plaque commemorating the use of the College by the United States Army 105th General Base Hospital between 1942 and 1944 was erected opposite the main dining hall and unveiled in 1968.
The late 1940s and 1950s was a period of recovery and consolidation for the College. Few new buildings were erected, but student enrolments increased significantly and College land holdings expanded with the purchase of a small farm in the Laidley area in 1945, an adjacent farm of 95 acres in 1948 and an additional 85 acres to the west, fronting the Brisbane-Toowoomba highway, in 1950. Teaching innovations introduced during this period included training of returned servicemen, Summer Agricultural Schools for primary school boys, Rotary-sponsored short farming courses for migrants and a course in butchering for indigenous students.
In 1950 the former Crowley Vale State School, erected c1916 to a standard Queensland Works Department 'open-air' school plan, was moved onto the College grounds as a lunchroom for farm hands. and was re-located to its present position in 1995.
In honour of students and staff from the College who had fought in the two world wars, an Olympic-sized War Memorial Swimming Pool was constructed in the early 1950s. Site excavation was carried out in 1950-52, largely by student labour using farm machinery such as tractors and ploughs, but the post-war shortage of materials delayed construction until 1953-54. The pool was funded by a War Memorial Fund established by College staff and students. In 1958-59 dressing rooms and a spectator pavilion were constructed beside the pool, partly funded by State Government subsidy.
In 1959 the main entrance from the Warrego Highway was improved with the construction of curved brick fences with ornamental steel work flanking the entrance, and a steel sign replacing the old wooden sign. The Hugh Courtney Oval was established in 1959-60, 1000 tons of ashes from the Bulimba Powerhouse were spread for drainage and the grass was cultivated by Gatton students.
A dam was constructed to the east of the Foundation Precinct in the 1950s. In 1980, during a particularly dry season, it was re-designed as a wildlife sanctuary and named Lake Galletly after past student, long-serving staff member and nature conservationist, Jim Galletly.
In contrast to the restricted building program of the 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s was a boom construction period for the college, reflecting in part the dominance of the Country/National Party in Queensland politics. The State Government made a commitment to upgrade facilities at the College and to replace the early timber buildings and Second World War timber and fibrous cement structures, with more substantial brick buildings. In 1962 the high school section was closed and the college reverted to a tertiary institution with around 900 students enrolled. Thirty overseas students enrolled in 1960 under the Colombo Plan. In 1966 a wide diversification of courses was initiated under the guidance of the newly-formed Queensland Agricultural Education Advisory Board, including rural-related subjects such as food technology, hospitality, tourism, real estate valuation and wildlife services. The College gained autonomy from the Department of Education in 1967 and commenced a major building program. Brisbane firm Bligh Jessup Brentnall was retained as architects and developed a site plan for the college, heralding the 'red brick' era of its development. Construction included halls of residence, lecture theatres and schools, a new administration block, and new animal facilities. A new gymnasium was erected in 1968, funded by the College Welfare Fund and State Government subsidy, and was dedicated in 1969 as the War Memorial Gymnasium.
An airstrip was established in 1966 as a training ground for students interested in obtaining a private pilot's licence and has developed as a facility for the Air Training Corps and Army Cadets on campus, as well as for sports such as gliding, hot air ballooning and parachuting. In 1973 it was officially named the CH Francis Airstrip in honour of long-serving staff member Charles Francis who was instrumental its development.
In 1971 Gatton became a College of Advanced Education and control passed to a College Council. The then Director, Neil Briton, quoted Prime Minister John Gorton in declaring the aim of the College to be to produce a new end-product - a liberally-educated technologist. The first women students enrolled in 1969 on a non-residential basis, and residential women students were accepted in 1971. The College began to confer its own degrees in 1973 and continued to diversify the courses on offer. The next major change came as a result of new Commonwealth government education policy in 1988, which required tertiary institutions to have a minimum student population of 2000 full-time enrolments. Gatton did not meet the size criteria and like many other smaller colleges, consolidated with a larger institution. On 1 January 1990, it became part of the University of Queensland and is now known as The University of Queensland, Gatton Campus. There are currently around 1000 students enrolled.
","criteria":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus was established in 1897 by the Queensland Government as the Queensland Agricultural College. It is significant as Queensland's first agricultural vocational institution and demonstrates the Queensland government's commitment to agricultural education, reflecting the vital importance of primary production in the history of the State. It has significance as Queensland's principal agricultural training educational institution for over a century, contributing to generations of best-practice farming in this State. The University of Queensland Gatton Campus also has historical significance for its role in the development of agriculture and agricultural research in Queensland through its historical and continuing links with the Queensland Department of Agriculture (now Department of Primary Industries) and the CSIR (now CSIRO). In addition, the University of Queensland Gatton Campus is significant for its wartime use as a military hospital, and a number of buildings and structures survive associated with this period.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus is significant for its wartime use as a military hospital, and a number of buildings and structures survive associated with this period. The dump associated with this use has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's wartime history.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus demonstrates the principal characteristics of a rural public educational institution, with the attributes of both a university campus and a working farm. The early-established spatial relationships between the administrative, teaching, workshop, residential, recreational, and farming elements of the site survives, as does early infrastructure including Lawes Siding Road, the original Warrego Highway entrance road, and the 1928-29 water tower and water storage tanks near Lockyer Creek.
The Foundation Building and the Homestead are evidence of the original collection of College buildings erected in 1897. Sir Leslie Wilson Hall, constructed as a gymnasium in 1899, demonstrates the recreational facilities that have been part of the campus from its establishment, and which include also a swimming hole in Lockyer Creek and an associated changing rooms building; a fine 1927 timber grandstand; ovals constructed in 1931, 1959-60 and 1965; a War Memorial Swimming Pool (1954); and an airfield (1966). Morrison Hall, constructed in 1936, is a fine example of an interwar Hall of Residence and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a timber dormitory building designed for the Queensland climate. The Farm Square precinct (which includes Farm Square (commenced 1899), the Hayshed (1923), the Merv Young Field Facilities Building [former Woolshed] (1913-15), the Weighbridge, the Blacksmith's Shop (1933), the former Dairy Factory [now the printery] (1912), Crow's Silo (1941); the Shearing Shed (1941); the Wool Classing Shed (c1940s); a number of other c1940s buildings; and an early residence (c1900) are important in illustrating the way in which a working farm is combined with facilities for the practical instruction of students.
The Cooper Laboratories, a complex of brick and timber buildings purpose-constructed from 1941 for the CSIR seed research program, is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a substantially intact, 1940s agricultural research facility.
On the northern side of the Warrego Highway, the Sewerage Treatment Works and the nearby Pump House on Lockyer Creek are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of early 1940s facilities of this type, and important historically for their association with the presence of an American military hospital at the College during the Second World War. The timber Dressing Shed beside Lockyer Creek at the northwest end of the campus is a rare known surviving example of this type of recreational structure.
|The Foundation Precinct, which includes the Foundation Building, the Homestead, Morrison Hall, Sir Walter Leslie Hall, the water tower, a flagpole, a sandstone memorial, and plantings of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensus], has aesthetic significance derived from the combination of impressive timber vernacular architecture, intact in both form and material, and striking formal landscape qualities. The campus generally has aesthetic value generated by its landscape qualities, which include: the treed sandstone ridge on which the core of the campus sits surrounded by farm paddocks; frontages to Lockyer and Laidley Creeks; planted avenues of trees along the central spine of the College core [Phoenix canariensus], along the original entrance road off the Warrego Highway, along Lawes Siding Road; and along the former Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road alignment at the southern end of the campus; and water features such as the man-made Lake Galletly. There are mature exotic trees planted throughout the campus, including those in the house gardens to the north of the Warrego Highway and along Lockyer Creek near the Dressing Shed, which contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus. Views to and from the central core are valued, and the water tower is a landmark, visible from the Warrego Highway and from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres to the west.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus has a strong and special association for the University/College community both past and present for its social and educational values. The place is well-known in the Queensland community for its contribution to the development of agriculture in this State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | 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 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":35560,"place_ref":602851,"name":"Forest Hill State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"15 Church Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"The teacher’s residence and mature bunya pine trees (Araucaria bidwillii) are situated within the grounds of Forest Hill State School, in the Lockyer Valley region. The school occupies an approximately 1.8ha site bounded by Church, Kent and Dyer Streets. The school addresses Church Street, with most school buildings located in the northern corner of the site. The teacher’s residence is located at the southeastern end of the Church Street frontage, and the bunya pine trees stand along the Church Street fence line, northwest of the residence. No other buildings, structures or trees within the school grounds are of cultural heritage significance.
\nTeacher’s Residence
\nConstructed in three stages, the residence is composed of a former provisional school building (1892) which forms the core; a kitchen wing (1898) at the rear; and a side extension (c.1906) northwest of the core. The building is timber framed, clad in timber weatherboards and stands on low concrete stumps. It has a front verandah and an enclosed, L-shaped verandah at the rear. Reflecting the extensions added over time, the building has a variety of roof forms. The core has a gable roof with stepped verandah roof on the northeast side and a broken-back roof (formerly a verandah roof) on the southwest side. The kitchen wing has a hipped roof, and the side extension has a gable roof with a small hipped section over a room at the southwest corner. A projecting stove alcove and laundry addition, both attached to the kitchen wing, have skillion roofs. All roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and eaves are unlined.
\nThe front verandah, accessed by a set of centrally located stairs, has a two-rail timber balustrade and stop-chamfered verandah posts. Balustrade posts at the top of the stairs are topped with ball finials.
\nTwo types of early windows and window hoods survive (some relocated from their original positions when the side extension was built). The earliest windows are timber-framed, six light sash windows located in the core and side extension walls. Other early windows are timber-framed, two light sashes. Windows hoods are either curved metal with patterned sides or timber skillion window hoods with latticed brackets. The southeast elevation of the core retains a rectangular louvred ventilation panel in the centre of the gable. Similar louvres provide ventilation to the projecting stove alcove.
\nThe plan of the core consists of a central corridor with two bedrooms on the eastern side and a single long room used as a living room on the western side. A doorway has been cut into the southern wall of the southern bedroom, allowing access to an adjacent storeroom. Diagonal timber brackets supporting the roof indicate where the former verandah walls were removed in the southern bedroom and the living room. Verandah posts have been re-used as additional structural support in some locations. The kitchen wing contains a single large room used as kitchen and dining room. The side extension contains two large rooms and a bathroom, which opens off the rear verandah. The rear verandah is enclosed with sliding aluminium windows and the former balustrade is clad in flat sheeting. The raked ceilings throughout the verandah area are lined with flat sheeting and some sections have cover strips. A toilet room added at the southern end of the verandah is not of heritage significance.
\nFloors throughout the residence are timber, covered in non-significant modern carpet or linoleum. Internal walls are generally single-skin, except in locations where a former exterior wall is now an internal wall. Walls and ceilings have a variety of linings but are predominantly wide beaded boards. In the core, boards are laid horizontally on the walls of the former school room and some partitions. Belt rails with beaded edges appear to be used for earlier partitions and rails with chamfered edges for partitions dating from the c.1906 extension.
\nTwo types of early doors are found throughout the residence: ledged or braced-and-ledged timber doors made from vertical boards; and four panel timber doors, some with rectangular fanlights above. Most of these doors retain original or early hardware, including locks and keyhole covers. The front door retains an early doorbell.
\nThe laundry addition, accessed by a braced and ledged timber door on the southwest side, has a concrete floor, small louvred windows, and single-skin walls. A large concrete laundry sink stands against the northeast wall. A raised water tank near the southwest corner of the residence occupies the location of an earlier water tank.
\nThe residence is set back approximately 10m from the front boundary, surrounded by a fenced yard. The scale and style of the residence makes a positive contribution to the Church Street streetscape, which consists mainly of moderately-sized timber houses and churches from the late 19th – mid 20th century on generous blocks of land. The residence is visible for some distance along Church Street, particularly from the east.
\nBunya trees
\nThe two large bunya trees are a landmark feature of the street and surrounding neighbourhood, due to their height and wide canopies (which have a radius of approximately 5.4m in 2014). Standing 8m apart and set back 1.8m from the front fence, the trees are surrounded by a recent garden bed.
\n","history":"
Forest Hill Provisional School opened in January 1893 in a small timber teaching building which was built to a standard government design. The provisional school building was constructed during 1892 on a one acre (0.4 ha) site in Church Street, in the agricultural settlement of Forest Hill. When a new state school building was constructed in 1898, the provisional school building was converted, with additions, into a teacher’s residence, with further additions constructed c.1906. Although the state school teaching buildings (1898, and c1913) have since been replaced, the former provisional school building is still used as a teacher’s residence, and two mature bunya trees (Araucaria bidwillii) mark the former entrance to the 1898 state school building.
\nThe small town of Forest Hill was once one of the busiest agricultural loading points in Queensland. Traditionally the land of the Yuggera people, from the early 1840s the area around Forest Hill was part of the ‘Rosewood’ pastoral station.[1] Some Rosewood land was later resumed by the Queensland Government as part of the West Moreton Agricultural Reserve, to enable closer settlement, and was offered for sale in the 1860s.[2] In 1868 a number of farm portions in the area around Forest Hill, including Portion 47, were purchased from Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior by Jondaryan Estates. The land was subdivided into farm and town blocks in 1886 as the Laidley Plains Estate, and Portion 47 was subdivided into town blocks.[3]
\nThe main reason for the subdivision of Portion 47 was the presence of the Southern and Western Railway along its northern boundary. The railway had been built westwards from Ipswich to serve the pastoralists of the Darling Downs. The section between Grandchester and Gatton was formally opened on 31 May 1866.[4] The first agriculturalist in the Forest Hill area, Major AJ Boyd, purchased land 6km south of the railway in 1880, and requested a siding on the line to the west of Laidley.[5] Initially known as Boyd’s siding, this was renamed after his property ‘Forest Hill’ by 1881, and in 1886 the siding was moved about a kilometre west, to the site of the current Forest Hill railway station.[6] Jondaryan Estates put more freehold land up for sale in 1889, and by 1890 there was a produce business and blacksmith in Forest Hill.[7] A hotel also operated briefly at Forest Hill between 1889 and 1891.[8]
\nThe growing town soon required a school. The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[9]
\nFrom 1869, in rural areas where there would be less than 30 pupils attending, provisional schools could be established. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. Local committees provided a building and found a teacher, and the Board of General Education (established 1860) paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils. Provisional schools were regarded as interim measures until state schools were built and were often hastily erected by voluntary labour using basic materials. By 1908, 640 provisional schools were operating compared with 461 state schools.[10]
\nIn August 1890, the Forest Hill community investigated the possibility of obtaining a provisional school, and a committee was formed in September that year.[11] Fundraising for the construction of a school was underway by this time.[12] Jondaryan Estates set aside 1 acre (0.4ha) of land on Portion 47, and in September 1890 this was given to the school committee.[13] An application for a provisional school was made after WR Burton became secretary of the school committee in August 1891, and the school was built for £98 by Mr Luder, with a government grant of £49.
\nThe Forest Hill Provisional School was based on a standard government plan. To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[14]
\nHowever, early provisional school buildings were not built to standard plans and many were of poor quality. Under regulations introduced in 1892 to address this situation, if a provisional school was built according to government specifications, the government would provide up to half the cost of the building and its furniture.[15] The recommended government plan for provisional schools was for a small low-set timber framed and clad building with a gable roof (type B/T6). It accommodated one large classroom 21ft x 14ft (6.4m x 4.3m) with a front verandah, although a rear verandah was sometimes provided.[16] The building was single-skin construction, lined externally with chamferboards. The building had few windows and ventilation was provided by a high-level louvred vent in the gable end wall. These were often a huge improvement over the previous provisional school buildings and were constructed until c1910.[17]
\nIn June 1893, it was reported that ‘The year… saw the beginning of a new practice in regard to provisional schools, the Department now… contributing, on certain conditions, towards the cost of their erection… Examples of this are afforded by the new schools at… and Forest Hill, which have been erected in accordance with departmental plans and specifications’.[18]
\nThe Forest Hill provisional school building consisted of a classroom 24.6’ by 14’ (7.5m x 4.3m), with a 7’ (2.1m) front verandah, and an 8’ (2.4m) back verandah. The building was inspected in December 1892, and Provisional School No.697 opened on 23 January 1893.[19]
\nForest Hill Provisional School became a state school in 1899, due to local population growth. The Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres (2428ha) of the Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station accelerated development of the town – and that same year the Queensland Agricultural College was constructed 4km northwest of Forest Hill.[20] Between 1898 and 1906 three hotels were built in Forest Hill – the Station Hotel (1898) now the Forest Hill Hotel [QHR 600652; the Crown Hotel (1902) burnt down in 1909; and the Lockyer Hotel (1906) [QHR600650]). The town’s first bank opened in 1901 and the first police station in 1902.[21]
\nWhile a provisional school only required 1 acre (0.4 ha), state schools required a minimum of 2 acres (0.8 ha).[22] The Department of Public Instruction paid 4/5ths of the £22 required to purchase an additional 3 acres (1.2 ha) to the northwest and southwest of the provisional school grounds, from Jondaryan Estates, in early 1898, making a total of 4 acres (1.6 ha).[23] Tenders were called in mid-1898 for a new state school, conversion of the existing provisional school into a teacher’s residence, and fencing.[24] In October 1898, the establishment of the state school was authorised by the Governor, and the tender of R Hodges for a new state school at Forest Hill (£539 1s 6p) was accepted.[25]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation.
\nFrom the outset, teachers’ residences were built to a standard regulated by the Board of General Education.[26] Initially, residences were most often attached as annexes to the classroom building, but from the 1880s were built as detached residences. These residences were similar to the vernacular Queensland house but typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees, and this practice was followed at Forest Hill.
\nThe new Forest Hill State School’s teacher’s residence was not a standard design, as it consisted of modifications to the existing school teaching building. As part of the conversion, a partition was added to the main classroom space of the former provisional school; two bedrooms were created on the rear verandah, and a storeroom, kitchen and servant’s bedroom wing was added to the rear.[27] The new state school was declared on 1 May 1899, after completion of the new teaching building.[28]
\nTwo bunya trees were planted either side of the front gate to the state school building by 1910,[29] both of which survive in 2015. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of schools, and Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[30]
\nForest Hill continued to prosper after the state school opened. A further 18,000 acres (7284ha) in the Lockyer Valley were subdivided and sold as farms in 1903, town blocks were sold north of the railway line in 1904, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township.[31] By 1908, when the Post Office moved from the railway station to its own building in town,[32] the Forest Hill railway station was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and Forest Hill laid claim to being the largest loading centre in Queensland in the early decades of the 20th century.[33]
\nAs the town expanded, so did the teacher’s residence. The first Head Teacher at the state school was James McNally, who had six children.[34] Due to the residence being too small for his family, additions were approved in June 1906, at a cost of £115 – although Mr M O’Keeffe, MLA, had described the residence as ‘a little humpy, unfit for a family to reside in’, and had recommended a new building.[35] The additions consisted of a new sitting room, dining room and bathroom on the northwest side of the residence, with a new verandah at the rear connecting to the verandah of the kitchen wing. Another partition was also added to the former classroom space, creating a central hallway.[36]
\nThe population of the town increased due to the duplication of the railway line west of Laidley from 1911, and in 1914 Forest Hill State School reached its peak enrolment – 166 pupils with 5 teachers.[37] By this time, a new room had been added to the state school building, c.1913.[38] In 1923 approval was given to enclose under the school for Vocational Classes, and by 1937 a tennis court existed southwest of the residence.[39]
\nAfter World-War II, the area’s main industries were still dairying and agriculture. However, by the 1960s road transport was replacing rail; and Forest Hill’s importance as a loading centre for agricultural produce waned, with a number of businesses moving to Gatton.[40]
\nDespite this decline, the Forest Hill State School received a new school building, which was occupied in March 1965, and officially opened in May 1965.[41] The old state school teaching buildings were sold for removal that year. A classroom was built under the new school in 1969,[42] and a library and a demountable building were later built between the 1965 school and the residence – the demountable occupying the site of the 1898 state school building. In the 1980s, suggestions to remove the bunya trees for safety reasons (falling bunya nuts) were defeated by community attachment to the trees, and a garden was formed beneath them instead.[43] An early education unit opened on the grounds in 1982, and later became a pre-school. Land to the south of the former provisional school was added to the school grounds by 1987.[44] The current grounds cover 4.5 acres (1.8 ha).
\nThe former provisional school continues to be used as a teacher’s residence. A small skillion roof toilet has been added – projecting northwest from the southern end of the kitchen’s northwest verandah – and a slab-on-ground skillion roofed laundry has been added to the rear of the kitchen. The building has been restumped with concrete stumps; the wall between the kitchen and a servant’s room has been removed to form a larger kitchen space; and the wall between the northwest end of the original school building and the former rear verandah bedroom has been removed, forming a larger living room space.
\nIn 2015, Forest Hill’s school continues to be important to the town and district, having operated since 1893 and generations of Forest Hill students have been taught there.
\n\n
","criteria":"
The Forest Hill State School residence, built in 1892 as a provisional school and converted to a residence in 1898, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It is a representative example of a standard government-designed provisional school building that was later extended to become a state school residence.
\nThe original building is a product of the Queensland Government’s policy, from 1892, of providing up to 50 percent government funding for provisional schools built to standard government plans. Its later conversion to a residence demonstrates the policies, at the time, of providing residences for married male head teachers in rural areas and of re-using provisional school buildings as state school residences.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland schools, including the use of standard designs, the conversion of earlier school buildings to teacher’s residences, and tree planting.
\nThe Forest Hill State School residence is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland provisional school building converted into a teacher’s residence. It retains the school’s lowset form; narrow width; early windows and doors; front verandah with stepped verandah roof and centrally aligned stairs; and louvred gable ventilation. The 1898 additions, which include a kitchen wing and the enclosure of the rear provisional school verandah to form bedrooms, reflect the requirements of converting the school building for residential use; while the rooms and bathroom added in 1906 demonstrate the need to adapt residences over time to accommodate teachers and their families.
\nThe two bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii), planted prior to 1910 facing Church Street, are fine examples of the feature trees planted in Queensland school grounds.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nThe Forest Hill State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Forest Hill community. The teacher’s residence was built as a provisional school in 1892 through the fundraising efforts of the local community. The school is important for its contribution to the educational development of Forest Hill. The bunya trees are a landmark feature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | 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 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":35601,"place_ref":602857,"name":"Lake Clarendon State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35 Lake Clarendon Road","suburb":"LAKE CLARENDON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-06-12","description":"Lake Clarendon State School occupies a flat, 3.7ha site on the corner of the main thoroughfares of Lake Clarendon Road and Lake Clarendon Way in the town of Lake Clarendon, approximately 8km northeast of Gatton. The school comprises a number of lowset, timber-framed buildings with corrugated metal-clad roofs, which are set well back from the road and are positioned at the northern end of the school site. At the northern edge of these buildings and addressing Lake Clarendon Road, are the weatherboard-clad, concrete-stumped Department of Public Works (DPW) teaching building (1901-2, extended 1977-8) and DPW school residence (1901-2, extended 1936). Constructed as a matching pair with similar architectural features, the northern elevations of these two buildings are aligned. Two out-buildings, a garage and laundry, are located to the east of the residence. An open-air school building (1914, moved onto the site c.1974) and playshed (1906) are located southwest of the DPW teaching building. The school is conspicuous in its rural setting, with well-established grounds that contain several mature trees.
\nDepartment of Public Works School Residence (1901-2, extended 1936)
\nThe DPW school residence is highly intact. The building has a hipped-roof core (1901-2) with a verandah at the front (north) and a dining room at the rear (south, former verandah), a gable-roof kitchen wing (1901-2), and a western enclosed sleep-out (1936). An original, metal roof fleche is featured on the roof of the core. Packed weatherboards are in the gable ends of the kitchen wing and end walls of the stove-alcove for ventilation. Corrugated metal-clad, timber-framed hoods shelter windows on the eastern side.
\nThe building retains most of its early timber joinery. Windows include two-light sashes in the core, and six-light casements in the sleep-out. Early doors within the core include low-waisted doors (internal) and half-glazed French doors (front verandah wall and to the sleep-out space); and most doors have early hardware and centre-pivoting fanlights. Other doors within the sleep-out space comprise high-waisted doors with early hardware. Original braced-and-ledged doors of wide beaded boards access the kitchen wing and storeroom.
\nThe front verandah features stop-chamfered timber posts and a three-rail balustrade, clad externally with modern flat sheeting. Its verandah wall is single-skin with chamferboard cladding and externally-exposed stud framing and cross-bracing.
\nInternally, all ceilings are clad in vertically jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. Skirtings and cornices are narrow timber with simple profiles. The core is centred on a hallway that runs north-south; with a bedroom and living room to the east and two bedrooms to the west. Its exterior walls are internally lined with wide, horizontal beaded-boards; and the interior partitions are single-skin with post and belt rails supporting vertical beaded-boards. Square ceiling vents within the core are sheeted over. The southern dining room's walls are lined with VJ boards and modern flat sheeting, and the space retains a stop-chamfered timber post from the original verandah fabric. Lightweight modern partitions form a small store room at the western end of the space (not of cultural heritage significance). The kitchen wing, on the southern side of the dining room, contains a generous stove alcove in the kitchen (now a pantry), a bathroom and a storeroom. It is internally lined in VJ boards, with wide beaded-boards in the store room. The sleep-out is lined with VJ boards; the eastern wall retains formerly exterior, weatherboard cladding. The sleep-out is a long space, with a small room and modern toilet enclosure at the south end.
\nResidence Out-Houses - Garage (pre-1974) and Laundry (pre-1951)
\nThe garage and laundry are both single-skin, north-facing structures with skillion roofs and internally-exposed stud framing and cross-bracing. The larger and northernmost building, the garage, is clad in VJ boards and has a concrete slab floor. The laundry is clad in weatherboards and has a timber floor. Both buildings have unlined eaves and louvred windows in timber frames.
\nDepartment of Public Works Teaching Building (1901-2, extended 1977-8)
\nThe DPW teaching building is accessed via timber stairs to the front (north) verandah. It also has a rear verandah (now enclosed), to which an annexe is attached. The roof is gabled and has an original metal ventilation fleche in the centre, matching that of the residence. The roof overhang over the western end wall has spaced eaves to ventilate the roof space, and a triangular ventilation panel is in the gable apex. The western gable end wall has a large bank of high-level, stop-chamfered timber window frames (containing modern louvres), protected by a timber hood with decorative brackets and battened cheeks. The modern, eastern extension (1977-8) is not significant.
\nBoth verandahs have raked ceilings with the front verandah retaining its original beaded board lining. The front verandah has a single-skin verandah wall with exposed studwork and cross-bracing, stop-chamfered timber posts and a small surviving section of its early three-rail balustrade. The rear verandah is enclosed with modern flat-sheeting. Doorways and windows in the verandah walls are modern replacements, but occupy their original, symmetrical positions; with the exception of a large, modern opening in the rear wall. The entry door retains its 2-light fanlight.
\nThe interior is comprised of a large, single classroom with a coved ceiling and stop-chamfered timber tie-beam. Skirtings, cornices and architraves are all narrow with simple profiles. The ceiling and walls are lined in modern flat sheeting, and the timber floors are lined with modern carpet and linoleum.
The annexe has been converted into a teacher's room and has a coved ceiling lined with beaded boards. A small section of beaded board cladding is retained in the northern wall, while the remaining walls are clad in modern flat sheeting. A bank of early, vertically centre-pivoting windows (now fixed) in stop-chamfered timber frames remain in the southern wall.
Open-air School Building (1914, moved onto the site c. 1974)
\nThe open-air school building is a small, single-room, hipped-roofed structure on low timber stumps. It has single-skin walls with internally-exposed studs and cross-bracing, and VJ, T&G timber cladding - the boards are narrower on the eastern half of the building. Sliding windows with timber sashes have replaced blinds on the east, south and north sides. Access to the interior is via stairs on the north and south elevations, through braced and ledged, VJ timber doors. The hipped ceiling is lined with VJ, T&G timber boards, and a large timber tie beam is exposed within the space. Modern linoleum covers the timber floorboards.
\nPlayshed (1906)
\nThe playshed is a large 10-post timber structure with a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The posts are braced to the exposed roof framing by brackets. It is partially enclosed with vertically mounted, corrugated metal sheets, and has a modern, concrete slab floor.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are established and include mature trees and plantings. Of particular importance is a large shade tree (pre-1933) in front of the DPW teaching building - the last surviving evidence of early plantings that emphasised the axial arrangement of the school entrance. The front gate and concrete pathway leading to the staircase of the DPW teaching building indicate the original north-south entry axis.
\nThe DPW residence and DPW teaching building are linked visually by their similar scale, orientation and architectural features; in particular their metal roof fleches, north-facing orientation, construction materials, and alignment of their front verandahs.
\nThe school is prominent in its rural setting and views of the surrounding pastoral areas are obtained from within the school grounds.
\nOther Structures
\nOther structures within the cultural heritage boundary, including modern teaching buildings, shade structures, sheds and tennis courts are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Lake Clarendon State School, located about 8km northeast of Gatton, opened in 1902. The timber school residence and teaching building were erected in 1901-2 (the latter was extended in the late 1970s), and a playshed was added in 1906. An open-air school building (c1914) was also moved to Lake Clarendon from Glen Cairn State School c1974. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland, and retains excellent examples of standard government designed school buildings that were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nTraditionally the land of the Jagera people, the Lake Clarendon area was once part of Lake Clarendon Station - previously part of the Grantham pastoral run,[1] which was reduced by government resumptions in the late 1860s and 1870s.[2] Although the Lake Clarendon area was opened to selection around 1870, William and Walter Vanneck, who had taken up Grantham Station, took an interest in Lake Clarendon after the resumptions, and brought out the initial Lake Clarendon selectors to form a grazing property.[3] The 14,000 acre (5666ha) Lake Clarendon Estate was repurchased from Walter Vanneck for £2 an acre by the government in 1899, and farm blocks were sold from November that year.[4] The better agricultural land sold for £5 an acre, and the rich flats, after some initial hardships caused by the Federation drought, were soon growing lucerne, maize, onions, potatoes and pumpkins.
\nA state school was a natural result of successful closer settlement. In 1899 a school reserve of 9 acres, 2 roods and 12 perches (3.87ha) was surveyed just south of the lake reserve.[5] The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia, and the establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nAt Lake Clarendon, a Building Committee was elected at a public meeting at the school reserve in August 1900, and soon applied for a state school. Local fundraising, which included dances, raised almost £90, out of the £120 required, by November 1900.[7] The Minister for Education approved a state school at Lake Clarendon in January 1901, the land was granted to the Secretary of Public Instruction in June 1901, and tenders for the new school's buildings (school room and residence) and fencing were sought by August 1901.[8]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland, with complexes of typical components.[9]
\nIn 1893 the Department of Public Works took over the design of schools from the Department of Public Instruction. Plans were at first based on earlier designs by architect Robert Ferguson - simple, lowset timber schools, with improved ventilation features, gabled roofs and front and back verandahs. The Works Department experimented with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Lake Clarendon's teaching building was one of the earlier designs of this period (Type C/T1, built from 1897-1909).[10] It was built as a pair with the residence, and had exposed internal stud framing, verandahs front and back, high window sills, and an enclosed hat and lavatory annexe off the rear verandah.[11] Ventilation features included the distinctive fleche on the roof - a feature shared with the residence - and louvres at the apex of the gables. The school room's dimensions were 31' by 20' (9.4m x 6m); verandahs were 8' (2.4m) wide, and the hat and lavatory annexe was 12' by 7' (3.7m x 2.1m).[12] The residence (Type C/R3)[13] had three bedrooms and a living room to either side of a central hallway, with front and rear verandahs, and the semi-detached rear kitchen wing included a bathroom and storeroom.[14]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation.[15] The more spacious residence used at Lake Clarendon, with a wide dining verandah between the house and kitchen wing, was a response to complaints about earlier designs having narrow verandahs.[16]
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works' architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher's residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nContractor P Fagan had finished the school buildings, at a cost of £783 16s, by 1 June 1902.[17] The school opened in early June 1902, with an enrolment of 31 boys and 24 girls,[18] and the Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser soon reported that the teaching building and residence were splendid buildings, and ‘beyond a doubt for architectural style and finish they rank foremost in the Lockyer district'.[19] The teaching building was utilised for a welcoming social and dance for the new head teacher, WJ Walton, and his wife. The area's first telephone was located at the school residence, which served as a post and receiving office from 1903, and a post office from 1906. The area's first public telephone for the district was installed on the verandah of the teaching building in 1911.[20]
\nThe School Committee (which replaced the Building Committee in 1904)[21] was soon raising money for additions to the school. Arbor Day 1905 included an evening social to raise funds for a ‘weather shed' (playshed).[22] The locals initially expected to only have to raise one-fifth of the cost of the playshed, but they were upset when told the government expected half the money to be raised locally.
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[23] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although were less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas.[24] Lake Clarendon State School finally obtained a ten-post 30' by 20' (9m x 6m) playshed in 1906, following the acceptance of John Doyle's tender for £60 that April. It was enclosed on the west and south sides in 1911, and was moved to its present position in 1951, from its original position 100 yards (91.4m) behind the school.[25]
\nAn Arbor Day planting of trees in front of the Lake Clarendon teaching building is shown in a 1909 photograph,[26] and the mature tree in front of the teaching building appears to be the last survivor of four trees, planted between the teaching building and the road and forming an avenue, visible on aerial photography from 1933.
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the lighting of classroom interiors. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[27] At Lake Clarendon, casement windows were added just below the existing gable windows of the school room c1924.[28]
\nThe residence was also modified to meet changing requirements. In 1936 a sleep-out and extra room were added to the northwest side. French doors replaced the original bedroom windows on that side, and new doorways were added from the front and rear verandahs into the addition.[29] A small toilet enclosure was later added to this space. The laundry on the southeast side of the residence existed by 1951, and the garage on the southeast side of the residence existed by 1974.[30]
\nOther alterations occurred at Lake Clarendon State School. In c1954 the hats and lavatory annexe at the rear of the original teaching building was converted into a small library.[31] A tennis court, originally located just northeast of the school residence, was moved to its current site northwest of the teaching building c1964.[32] During the late 1960s the teaching building was refurbished to improve light and ventilation, and the pupils were taught in the playshed for 5 months.[33] In 1970 an old school building (Block B) was moved from Atkinson's Lagoon State School (operated 1885-1968), for grades 4-7.[34] This building is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn the mid-1970s the school's Parents and Citizens' (P&C) Association bought a former open-air school building (Block C) from Glen Cairn State School (operated 1926-72).[35] This now rare building (Type C/T7, 1914-20)[36] was originally built for Ropeley East State School (operated 1915-55) before it was moved to Glen Cairn. Constructed by Alec MacDonald c1914, it measured 24' by 12' (7.3m x 3.7m), and initially had canvas blinds instead of wall cladding along two sides, and part of the third side; while the remainder of the walls were clad with 4\" by 1\" (10.2cm x 2.5cm) vertical tongue and groove boards.[37]
\nOpen-air school buildings had been introduced as a standard design in 1913.[38] This design was developed in response to contemporary medical thought related to the need for adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light for health, coupled with the need to build cheap, portable schools. The open-air type achieved maximum ventilation and natural light; it contained only one large room. Some had only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure.[39] Open-air school buildings proved to be inadequate and were discontinued in 1923, although many had been constructed across Queensland in 10 years. The open sides provided limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. All open-air school buildings in Queensland were modified to provide better enclosure.[40] At some point the canvas blinds on the open-air building at Lake Clarendon were replaced with timber cladding and sliding windows.
\nIn the late 1970s a pre-school was added at Lake Clarendon. The original teaching building was extended to the southeast for a new classroom, and then a kitchen and staff room, in 1977-8.[41] Since 1991, new structures have been added to the school; in front of the older school teaching buildings (shaded play areas), as well as to the rear (southwest) and to the west. In 2012 part of the school grounds became a car park, and the remaining grounds cover 3.7ha.
\nSince establishment the school has been a key social focus for the local community, with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time. The first Arbor Day at the school occurred in 1904, and the event attracted the largest gathering yet seen in the district: 500-600 people, with ample food and a brass band supplied.[42] Large community events occurred for the school's Golden Jubilee in 1952, and its 75th Jubilee in 1977. The school was also used by the public for various events until a CWA Hall became available nearby.[43]
\nIn 2015, Lake Clarendon State School retains its original teaching building, residence, and playshed, and the rare open-air school building. The school is important to the town and district, having operated since 1902, and generations of Lake Clarendon students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Lake Clarendon State School (established in 1902) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a collection of good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThese standard designs are: the Department of Public Works-designed teaching building (1901-2), which demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; and the highly intact residence (1901-2), which provides evidence of Departmental policy to provide accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in country areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site. The playshed (1906) demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum; and the open-air school building (1914, relocated to Lake Clarendon c1974) demonstrates medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air. All these buildings are set within school grounds containing mature shade trees, including one early tree in front of the teaching building.
|Surviving small, lowset, open-air school buildings are rare, as are intact Department of Public Works-designed large teacher's residences.
|Lake Clarendon State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, play areas and sporting facilities. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school complex.
\nThe Department of Public Works-designed school residence is an excellent, intact example of the residence type of its period - retaining its lowset, hipped roof, weatherboard-clad form with early joinery; and comprising three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen with stove alcove, a front verandah and rear dining room, and natural ventilation features, including its ventilation fleche. The 1936 sleep-out addition is a good example of alterations that were commonly made to school residences to meet changing spatial requirements.
\nThe Department of Public Works-designed teaching building is a good example of a regional timber school and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. It retains its gable roof with ventilation fleche; some early timber joinery; single large classroom with generous verandahs (rear verandah now enclosed); rear annexe; coved ceiling; and single skin verandah walls (only retained at the front).
\nThe open-air school building is a good example of its type, retaining its lowset design, with single-room classroom and hipped roof. The enclosures of the former canvas screen sections demonstrate typical modifications that were made to the type with changing educational philosophies.
\nThe playshed is a good example of its type and retains its hipped timber-framed roof, supported on 10 braced timber posts.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nLake Clarendon State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Lake Clarendon community. It was established in 1902 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Lake Clarendon children have been taught there.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | 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 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":null,"place_ref":650244,"name":"Blenheim State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"81 Blenheim Road","suburb":"BLENHEIM","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-02-28","description":"Blenheim State School occupies a 2.055ha site in Blenheim, a rural township in the Lockyer Valley, approximately 40km west of Ipswich. The school is located on the corner of Blenheim Road and Mount Berryman Road, and is bounded by rural properties to the south and east. The school buildings, including the adjacent Teachers Residence in a yard to the east, are located at the northern end of the site and front Blenheim Road. Playing fields occupy the elevated grounds to the south. A variety of trees are scattered across the site, with denser clusters of plantings along the roadside boundaries.
\nFeatures of Blenehim State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlocks A (1935) and B (1944): Small Timber School Buildings
\nBlocks A and B are two size variations of a standard teaching building design. Block A is larger, accommodating a single 18ft x 30ft (5.5 x 9.1m) classroom, while the Block B classroom (now a staff room) is 18ft x 21ft (5.5m x 6.4m).
\nBoth are highset, timber-framed and clad buildings with gable roofs that are continuous over the front (east) and rear (west) verandahs. The verandahs (now enclosed) retain evidence of former hat room enclosures at their southern ends. Access to the verandahs is via stairs, which have been replaced (Block A, east stair in original location, west stair relocated to the south; Block B, stairs retain centred access but have been realigned).
\nThe classrooms have high coved ceilings with ceiling vents. Large banks of windows in the gable ends provide abundant natural light and ventilation. Doorways between the classrooms and former verandahs align with the original stair locations, ceiling vents and exposed metal tie rods, demonstrating axial planning (Block A, north of centre; Block B, centred). Some of the verandah walls have been partially demolished (Block A, east; Block B, west; bulkheads retained) to extend the classrooms.
\nUsed as open play space, the understoreys retain perimeter enclosures to the west and south that are clad in corrugated metal.
\nFeatures of Block A and Block B also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Blocks A and B not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlayshed (1900)
\nThe Playshed is an open-sided, timber-framed, former 10-post shelter with a hip roof. The posts have diagonal bracing members to the roof framing, which is exposed internally. One post on the southern side has three notches, possible evidence of an early former enclosure (now removed). Three posts have been replaced by an extension at the western end that accommodates a toilet block, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Playshed of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Playshed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Teachers Residence (1935)
\nThe Teachers Residence is a highset, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building set within an open house yard. The building faces north and has a hip roof, continuous over an L-shaped verandah (now enclosed) to the northeast corner; a front-facing gable roof projects from the northwest corner. Timber stairs provide access to the front verandah and an enclosed landing to the rear.
\nThe interior layout comprises three front bedrooms accessed via a central hallway, with a living room, kitchen, former store (now toilet, added 1978) and bathroom (layout reconfigured to extend bathroom into former pantry) to the rear. The kitchen retains its projecting stove recess.
\nThe understorey is enclosed with timber batten perimeter screens. An enclosed laundry in the southeast corner has flat-sheeted walls and a boarded door. Corrugated-metal water tanks on timber platforms, set on concrete stumps, are located to the south of the Residence.
\nFeatures of the Teachers Residence also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Features of the Teachers Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Landscape Features and Views
\nBlock A and the Teachers Residence (both 1935) stand in their original locations, in alignment with each other and set back an equal distance from Blenheim Road. Open yard space between Block A, the Residence and Blenheim Road facilitates views of and between them. Surrounding open space is also important to facilitate abundant natural light and ventilation to the interior of Block A and Block B.
\nThe Playshed stands to the west of Block A and retains adjacent open space that connects it with the playing fields to the southeast. Former views between Block A and the Playshed have been obscured by relocated Block B.
\nThe school grounds retain a variety of shade trees, including two mature trees along the boundary.
\nLandscape features and views also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Blenheim State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
","history":"
Blenheim State School was established in 1879 on a two-acre (0.8ha) site in the rural locality of Blenheim in the Lockyer Valley, approximately 72km southwest of Brisbane. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains its Playshed (1900), two Small Timber School Buildings (Block A, 1935; Block B, 1944, on site 1977) and its Teachers Residence (1935), set in spacious grounds with play areas and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Blenheim community.
\nBlenheim is situated within the traditional lands of the Yuggera Ugarapul People. Closer settlement for agricultural purposes commenced in this area after the sale of land resumed under the Land Act 1868 from the pastoral run Franklinvale (later Franklyn Vale), which had been established in the 1840s. Initially called Sandy Creek, Blenheim developed in the 1870s as a small, farming community about seven kilometres southwest of the town of Laidley. Farming commenced with growing maize, lucerne and potatoes, and progressed into dairying, as well as cropping, by the turn of the 20th century.[1]
\nWith closer settlement at Blenheim, came the need for a school to serve the community. A school committee was formed in 1875 and funds were raised for the establishment of a school. In June 1878 tenders were invited to erect a primary school at Blenheim.[2] Two acres (0.8ha) of land for the school site, located in a curve at the junction of Blenheim Road and Mount Berryman Road, was donated to the Department of Public Instruction by Martin Carmody, owner of Portion 120, who also conducted the mail receiving office for Blenheim.[3] By November 1878, the school building was rapidly approaching completion and the school committee was collecting money towards erection of a teachers residence.[4]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. They provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[5]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[6]
\nBlenheim State School opened on 7 April 1879 with 44 children enrolled. During its first year, enrolments rose to 73 pupils with an average attendance of 40 to 50 pupils.[7] The school building immediately became a popular venue for community meetings.[8] A teachers residence was erected on the site and in 1883 an additional half acre (0.2ha) was added to the south of the school grounds.[9]
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was necessary. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[10] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[11]
\nIn 1900, the Public Works Department approved the construction of a timber Playshed to cater for Blenheim State School’s students.[12] The 30ft x 20ft (9.14 x 6.1m) Playshed had a hipped roof supported on ten stop-chamfered and braced (corners) timber posts. Perimeter timber seats were fixed to the timber posts and had centred openings on the north and south sides, and the gravel floor had a kerbed surround.[13] The Playshed was built by Charles Cross at a cost of £76,[14] of which £15.4 was raised by the community.[15]
\nIn 1934, the Department of Public Instruction approved the replacement of Blenheim State School’s 55-year-old teaching building, teachers residence and earth closets, which were in poor condition and of outdated designs.[16] A new teaching building and teachers residence were constructed between November 1934 and February 1935 by contractors Arthur Thomas Taylor and Stanley Edwin Taylor, of Sherwood, Brisbane, for £408.17s and £548.7s respectively.[17]
\nBlenheim State School’s new teaching building (Block A in 2019), was a standard design ‘Small Timber School Building’. This type of building was constructed in Queensland between 1930 and 1946 and was a continuation of earlier types of small, country teaching buildings. The classroom width was generally 18ft (5.5m), and the building was highset, with two verandahs. The type was not designed for expansion, being built for a set number of students – either 24, 40, 60 or 80.[18] The new building, for 60 pupils, was completed in January 1935.[19]
\nPlans and specifications from 1934 show that the single classroom building was a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure, highset on tall timber stumps, with a gabled roof and verandahs on the east and west sides. The classroom was 18ft x 30ft (5.5 x 9.1m). Timber stairs provided access to the 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs, which had semi-enclosed corner hat rooms at the southern ends. Banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and skillion window hoods were centred on the south and north gable end walls; the northern windows were to have ‘acid obscured’ glass. Doors from the verandah to the classroom were positioned slightly north of the centre, to accommodate two classes in the one room: a smaller, east-facing class to the north; and a larger, west-facing class to the south. This allowed for natural light to enter from the student’s left, espoused as an optimum arrangement by educators at the time. The ceiling was coved with an exposed tie rod and an off-centre latticed ceiling vent between the doors. The understorey provided sheltered play space and was partly enclosed with timber battens (southeast) and corrugated metal sheets (south and west); timber seats ran along the south wall and into the southwest corner. [20]
\nA function held to celebrate the opening of the new school building on 9 February 1935 was attended by dignitaries including the Under Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction, Bernard J McKenna, who officially opened the building; Sir Littleton Groom, MHR; Edmund B Maher, MLA; and shire council members.[21]
\nThe Teachers Residence was constructed on an additional one acre (0.4ha) of land adjacent to the school’s eastern boundary, which had been purchased for £15 from John Panzram, Jnr, in 1930.[22] The building was completed by 14 February 1935.[23] Most Queensland state schools incorporated a teachers residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, from as early as 1864, with the government policy applying to male teachers only. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Following World War I, teacher shortages were blamed on the inadequacy and shortage of teachers residences. Consequently, many new teacher residences were constructed across Queensland in the 1930s and again following World War II.[24]
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the government, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teachers residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to adapt to modern needs and styles.
\nPlans for the residence at Blenheim show a standard 1930s ‘Teachers Residence’.[25] Built from 1929 to 1949, this type was a highset timber-framed structure, with a hipped roof with projecting gable at the front, and an L-shaped verandah to the northwest corner.[26] The interior comprised a core of three bedrooms and a living room arranged around a central hallway, with a rear wing that included a kitchen with stove alcove, storeroom, pantry and bathroom. French doors opened onto the verandah; and the six-light casement windows on exposed exterior walls had skillion hoods. Timber stairs accessed the front verandah and a landing to the rear, and an understorey laundry was located below the kitchen. Corrugated metal water tanks on timber platforms were located to the rear and side of the Residence.[27] When built, the Residence at Blenheim had a layout that mirrored its documented plan, with its L-shaped verandah positioned in the northeast corner.
\nFrom 1885 until 1941, the Blenheim State School’s Teachers Residence served as the settlement’s receiving office or post office, with the head teacher, or his wife, acting as the postmaster/mistress. Accordingly, in 1935, the post office (postal services and telephone exchange) was moved to the new Teachers Residence. It eventually closed on 1 May 1970.[28] Original and early telephone fixtures remain in situ, including a bracket and insulator on a former verandah post and a telephone bell attached in the understorey.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[29]
\nThe grounds at Blenheim State School contain a number of mature trees. Arbor day plantings, undertaken at the school from at least 1892, have included Cyprus pines (Callitris sp.), camphor laurels (Cinnamonum camphora), jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), cedar trees (genus not identified), and Crow’s Ash (Flindersia australis).[30] At the time of Blenheim State School’s centenary in 1979, it was estimated that more than 40 trees and 20 shrubs remained in the school grounds from Arbor Day plantings.[31] Many of those trees appear to have been removed or died in the intervening years to 2019. On the western school boundary, a fig tree (Ficus sp.) and a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), which predate a 1933 aerial, remain on site.
\nIn 1980, 0.64ha of land, located to the south of the Teachers Residence, was resumed for use by the school as a playing field.[32] This increased the school grounds to its current extent.
\nOver time, a number of changes have been made to Block A. In April 1943, the DPW supplied cement and subsidised the cost of gravel and sand for concreting under the school.[33] In 1956, a storeroom was created underneath and shelving was added to the room in 1962.[34] In 1958, a library was provided by enclosing the southern side of the west verandah, with awning windows and a new wall.[35] By 1977 the library was used as a store, the northern side of the west verandah had been enclosed for use as a workroom, and the stairs had been moved to the south.[36] Plans from that time also indicated the proposed enclosure of the east (front) verandah with glass louvres and weatherboards, new doors at the top of the stairs, and a large opening to be formed in the verandah wall.[37] The enclosed west verandah was used for administration from 1999, and the interior reconfigured into office spaces in recent years.[38] In 2015, an open-sided gable-roofed extension was added to the southern end of Block A, with doorways formed in the southern bank of windows and the former western hat room.
\nSome changes have been made to the Playshed. In 1950, its gutter was repaired and some sections replaced, while repairs were also made to the posts.[39] A toilet block addition was built on the western end of the Playshed in 1978 to upgrade toilet facilities on site. All existing wall sheeting was removed from the structure and re-used where possible. Weatherboard cladding was used on the exterior walls. The timber posts were cut off 100mm above ground and fixed with steel anchor straps set in concrete footings. Roofing to match the existing was used and gutters replaced.[40]
\nThe Teachers Residence has undergone some alterations, but remains very intact. The front verandah was enclosed in 1960.[41] General repairs to steps and the addition of flat sheeting to the bathroom took place in 1962.[42] All stumps have been replaced in concrete.[43] Changes to the rear wing include conversion of the storeroom to a toilet in 1978,[44] and later reconfiguration to incorporate the pantry into a remodelled bathroom. Rear windows have also been replaced with glass louvres and aluminium-framed sliders.
\nTo accommodate increased enrolments at Blenheim State School, a second Small Timber School Building was transferred to the school in March 1977, from the recently closed Woodlands State School, also in the Lockyer Valley.[45] This building, constructed in 1944 and designed for 40 pupils, had been transferred to Woodlands State School from Ropeley East State School after that school closed in 1955.[46] When built, the timber-framed, weatherboard-clad and gable-roofed structure was highset on timber stumps.[47] Plans show it contained a single 18ft x 21ft (5.5m x 6.4m) classroom, flanked by 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs on the east and west sides that had centred stairs and enclosed hat rooms at the southern ends.[48] Access from the east verandah was via a centred door, while the access from the west verandah was via a door in the hat room – to accommodate wall-mounted hyloplates for the west-facing class. The coved ceiling had an exposed tie rod and centred latticed vent. Banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and skillion window hoods were centred on the gable end walls; the northern bank of windows was originally half the width of the southern, but had been widened by 1964.[49] After its removal to Blenheim State School, where it was sited southwest of the existing building, the Small Timber School Building (Block B in 2019) was given replacement stairs, concrete stumps and understorey floor; a replacement water tank; and both the interior and exterior were painted.[50] By 1999, the verandahs were enclosed for use as storage and staff areas, and a large opening was formed in the west verandah wall.[51]
\nThroughout its history, Blenheim State School has been a focus for its community. The school provided a popular venue for meetings and events.[52] In return, the community supported the school with fundraising through dances and entertainments, and assisted with working bees.[53] Blenheim State School commemorated its 50th anniversary jubilee on 1 May 1929 with celebrations attended by over 400 adults, including 22 of the school’s first pupils, as well as Sir Littleton Groom, MHR, and Lady Groom.[54] Arbor Day plantings in 1954 commemorated the school’s 75th anniversary and the visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Queensland. The school’s centenary in 1979 was marked by the publication of a souvenir history booklet, which included a history of the neighbouring Mount Berryman State School, which had closed on 24 May 1977.[55]
\nIn 2019, Blenheim State School continues to operate from its original site and has an enrolment of 65 pupils.[56] It retains its two Small Timber School Buildings (1935 and 1944), a Teachers Residence (1935), and a Playshed (1900), set in spacious grounds with play areas and mature trees. The school remains important to the Blenheim locality as a key focus for the community.
\n
Blenheim State School (established in 1879) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government education philosophies, set in large grounds with provision of play areas and mature trees.
\nThe two Small Timber School buildings (Block A, 1935; Block B, 1944, on site 1977) demonstrate the evolution of timber school buildings in providing adequate lighting and ventilation, and the provision of small teaching buildings in regional Queensland.
\nThe Teachers Residence (1935) is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's policy of providing residences at country schools as a means of attracting teachers to remote areas.
\nThe Playshed (1900) and generous grounds with provision of shade trees, demonstrate the Queensland education system’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Blenheim State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include buildings constructed to standard government designs, and a generous, landscaped site with mature trees and play areas. The school is a good example of a small country school.
\nBlock A and Block B are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Small Timber School Buildings designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW), and are good examples in two size variations. The buildings are intact, retaining their: highset, gable roof form; understorey play space; front and rear verandahs with hat rooms; timber-framed and -clad construction; single classroom with lofty coved ceiling; and large banks of operable windows to the gable end walls, providing abundant natural light and ventilation to the interior.
\nThe Teachers Residence is a good, intact example of a DPW standard ‘Type 3’ residence and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the type. These include its: highset, hip roof with front gable form; timber-framed and -clad construction with single-skin verandah wall; L-shaped verandah; layout of living spaces and bedrooms; early timber joinery and linings; and setting in a house yard.
\nThe intact Playshed demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its: hip roof form with exposed timber framing supported on braced, timber posts; and adjacent open space.
|Blenheim State School has a strong and ongoing association with former pupils, parents, staff members, and its surrounding community, through sustained use since its establishment in the developing agricultural locality of Blenheim in 1879. Founded due to the efforts of the community, Blenheim State School is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Blenheim district as generations of children have been taught at the school, and as a focus and venue for the community for more than 140 years. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated social interactions, volunteer actions, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | 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 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":null,"place_ref":650247,"name":"Mount Sylvia State School","alternate_name":"Mt Sylvia State School","street_address":"6 Left Hand Branch Road","suburb":"MOUNT SYLVIA","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-02-28","description":"Mount Sylvia State School is a small country school occupying a long narrow 1.2ha site in Mount Sylvia, a locality near Gatton in the Lockyer Valley Region. It is surrounded by large agricultural fields and the site is on the corner of Mount Sylvia Road (the main thoroughfare) and Left Hand Branch Road. Tenthill Creek, a seasonal watercourse, runs along the school’s western side. The school boundaries are planted with large ornamental shade trees and the school buildings generally stand in a cluster near the centre of the site.
\nThe features of Mount Sylvia State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A, Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (1912)
\nBlock A stands toward the front of the cluster of school buildings, facing north across a long playing field fronting Mount Sylvia Road. It is a small, timber-framed and -clad, single-storey, highset teaching building, with verandahs front and back (north and south), and it accommodates a single classroom. Its understorey has a concrete floor and is mostly open for covered play space. The building has a gable roof that is continuous over the verandahs, and large banks of operable windows into the classroom on its east and west gable-end walls. The building retains the original hatrooms at the western end of both verandahs, and the lofty single-classroom volume with coved ceiling.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape Features
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nViews
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nBuildings and landscape features of Mount Sylvia State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n
Mount Sylvia State School was established in 1885 as the Blackfellow Creek Provisional School. Situated approximately 20km south of Gatton in the Lockyer Valley, the school retains a good example of a standard design timber school building (Block A, 1912). The school is surrounded by open farmland, bordered by two creeks, Blackfellow and Tenthill, and within its generous grounds are several mature trees, including a row of jacaranda trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place of important social and cultural activity.
\nMount Sylvia forms part of the traditional land of the Yuggera Ugarapul People.[1] The Lockyer Valley was first explored by Europeans in the late 1820s. Pastoral runs were established in the Darling Downs in the 1840s with the Lockyer Valley following closely. The Tent Hill run initially covered an area of approximately 30,000 acres (12,140ha) and included the district now known as Mount Sylvia.[2] With the government’s introduction of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1868, to encourage smaller-scale farming, Tent Hill run was partially opened for closer settlement. Selections along Blackfellow Creek were swiftly taken up, largely by German immigrants, and by the late 1870s, the Mount Sylvia district had become one of the most productive agricultural areas in the Lockyer Valley.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nIn 1884 residents of Mount Sylvia’s small farming community lobbied the Department of Public Instruction (the department) for the establishment of a provisional school. Provisional schools were seen as a convenient means of providing an elementary education throughout the colony and soon became an integral part of the educational landscape. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of General Education gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building (often slab and shingle) and found a teacher, and the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils.[7]
\nThe two closest schools to Mount Sylvia were more than five miles (8km) away, a considerable distance for children to travel each day. One acre (0.4ha) of land with Left Hand Branch Road frontage and situated above the confluence of Blackfellow and Tenthill creeks, was donated to the community, and with the approval of the department, the first timber teaching building was constructed by the Mount Sylvia community. The modest school was opened in April 1885 with an enrolment of 33 students.[8]
\nWhen first opened, the school was named Blackfellow Creek Provisional School. The name was changed to Mount Sylvia, however, as it was thought it may cause confusion with the two other schools previously established along Blackfellow Creek. It is believed the name was derived from the Queen of Romania’s nom-de-plume, Sylvia. At the time, two of the school committee members were reading one of her books, and proposed the school name be changed to ‘Mount Sylvia school’, with the surrounding district subsequently becoming known as Mount Sylvia.[9]
\nThis school served the community well for the next ten years. However, as further land was made available for selection and more farms established in the district, the school’s enrolments increased and it soon became overcrowded. The department recognised this and in March 1894 tenders were called for the construction of a new school building for Mount Sylvia.[10] Following a visit to the newly completed school in April 1894, the district school inspector reported that the ‘new building measures 24 ft by 14 ft with a 7 ft verandah in front’ and with the inclusion of a tank and stand, had a total cost of £50.[11] Following the completion of the new teaching building, the old building was shifted on the site and modified to become the teachers residence.[12] The original teaching building faced west and overlooked the creek.
\nDue to the rudimentary state of the first teachers residence, a new residence was constructed in 1902, built at right angles to and behind the 1894 teaching building. The four-roomed house with front verandah faced north and had a semi-detached kitchen behind.[13] In 1909, additions to the rear of the residence were made by the department.[14]
\nAs early as 1898, the Mount Sylvia community was eager to have the provisional school upgraded to state school status. Enrolments had reached 80 students and overcrowding had become an issue.[15] In 1894, there were 55 farmers listed in the postal records at Mount Sylvia, and by 1913, there were 68.[16]
\nAs districts developed, the department would generally raise provisional schools to state school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher’s residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. In 1909, by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, the department upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status, gradually providing these schools with new standard buildings designed and constructed to government standards.[17]
\nInitially, the department was reluctant to grant this to Mount Sylvia, as the portion of land on which the school stood was too small for the department’s minimal standard size for a state school. In 1911, the school inspector reported that the current site of the school was a precarious one, as Blackfellow Creek increasingly encroached upon the school’s land following floods, and had eroded the steep embankment. It was recommended that an adjoining 3 acre (1.2ha) lot fronting the road to Gatton (known as Mt Sylvia Road in 2019) be acquired by the department at a cost of £30 per acre.[18] The department approved this and tenders were called in September 1911 for the construction of a new teaching building at Mount Sylvia.[19]
\nThe builder awarded the contract was Gatton builder, RGC Hamwoods, at a cost of £425.[20] A builders’ strike delayed construction work. In March 1912, Hamwoods wrote to the department informing them of the difficulty finding willing hands, ‘I will admit the timber has been ready for some time but during the time of the late strike I could not get any men to go out into the country, nor can I get them to go yet’.[21] Regardless of these setbacks, work progressed and the new teaching building had been completed by the end of September that year.
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[22]
\nIn c1909 high-set timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920.[23]
\nAt the opening ceremony of the new teaching building in September 1912 (Block A in 2019), the progress of the prosperous farming district and the quality of the building was applauded by visiting dignitary, Reverend Hayley of Toowoomba. At the time, it was reported that ‘the main building measures 31ft by 20ft [9.4m x 6.1m], and is placed on high stumps, with spacious verandahs back and front. The lighting and ventilation of the school-room have been done on the most up-to-date lines, and all fittings and appointments are of the latest and best, the school being undoubtedly the finest of its size in the Lockyer.’[24]
\nThe 1894 teaching building was subsequently sold by the department to local farmer, Mr Reisenleiter, for £36 and removed from the school grounds.[25] In 1916, a new teachers residence was constructed at a cost of £399. This new and larger residence retained the original residence’s semi-detached kitchen wing (the residence is no longer extant on the site).[26]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds and Mount Sylvia was no exception. From the school’s beginnings, there had been a focus on sport and outdoor activities. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. From the late nineteenth century, the planting of trees in the school grounds was an important activity for the school community and students participated in Arbor Day celebrations, an annual event in Queensland since 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[27]
\nAs an agricultural community, Mount Sylvia was an enthusiastic participant in Arbor Day celebrations. In 1890, the first at the school was held and it was reported that ‘about twenty trees’ had been planted in the school grounds.[28] Arbor Day became a major community event for Mount Sylvia. Each year, celebrations brought the district together for a day of sports and picnics, followed by a dance in the school building in the evening, ‘visitors simply poured in from the districts around, and it was a pleasure to note the hearty handshakes and welcoming smiles as old acquaintances were renewed.’[29] Over the years, a variety of trees were planted in the school grounds, including camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), figs (Ficus spp) and jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia).[30]
\nFollowing the 1910 celebrations, it was noted that the jacarandas in the grounds afforded considerable shade, ‘a long programme of races for the children and games of all sorts made the morning pass quickly, the school grounds forming a natural race track, and being sheltered by a fine lot of jacaranda trees, outdoor amusements could be indulged in under ideal conditions.’[31] In 2019, the mature trees throughout the school grounds continue to add to the picturesque setting of the school.
\nDuring World War II, schools were typically a focus for civilian duty. With the entry of Japan into the war and the increased threat of enemy attack, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools between January and March 1942, and student attendance was optional until the war ended. At Mount Sylvia, slit trenches for protecting the students from Japanese air raids were dug in the school grounds, under the jacaranda trees.[32]
\nEnrolments remained steady in the post-war period. Following the closure of several primary schools in the district, however, and a subsequent increase in enrolments, a new teaching building, Block B, was constructed to the south of Block A in 1971. Block A was then used as a pre-school. In 1983, a modular building was constructed to the south of Block B.[33] Minor changes were made to Block A over time, including enclosing part of the southern verandah c1959 for a library, adding partitions to the interior c1970, and subsequently removing the partitions and enclosing the remainder of the southern verandah c1980.[34] In 2019 Block A is used as a classroom.
\nMount Sylvia State School, established in 1885, has played an important role in the Mount Sylvia district community, and continues to do so. In 1935, the school held its jubilee celebrations with several of the original pupils attending, and ten years later the school’s diamond jubilee was celebrated. The school’s history was compiled in three publications commemorating the school’s 85th, 100th and 125th anniversaries respectively. Generations of students have been taught at Mount Sylvia State School and many social events have been held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.[35]
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Mount Sylvia State School, established in 1885, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a good, representative example of a standard government designed school building (Block A, 1912) that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in large grounds with provision of sport and play areas, and mature trees.
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (Block A, 1912) demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide abundant lighting and ventilation to provide a superior educational environment for Queensland children.
\nThe large school grounds and its mature shade trees and open grassed playing field demonstrate the Queensland Government’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Mount Sylvia State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: a timber-framed teaching building constructed to standard design by the Queensland Government set in a generous landscaped site with mature trees and play areas. The school is a good example of a small country school.
\nBlock A is a good intact example of a standard Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent and demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its: highset form with gable roof; open understorey play space; front and rear verandahs with hatrooms; timber-framed and -clad construction; single classroom with lofty coved ceiling; and methods to provide abundant provision of natural light and ventilation to the interior including its roof fleche and hinged ventilation boards, large banks of operable windows, and ceiling vents.
|Mount Sylvia State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1885. With more than 130 years of association with the Mount Sylvia community, and generations of children taught at the school, the school reflects the strong community demand for state-run education.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | 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 has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} ]}