Tramway
The main tramway extends from the settlement area in a curving arc westward (see Figure 1). The heritage register boundary extends 5m either side of the middle of the tramway mound. Sections of the original rail remain in situ near the settlement site. Much of the remaining tramway is used as vehicle access. The tramway extends off the National Park into neighbouring properties, but its full extent has yet to be accurately mapped.
Cemetery
The Mill Point cemetery is located 2km west of the settlement area and the boundary forms a square extending from the 1993 memorial stone and interpretive signage in the south a further 200m north and is 80m wide (see Figure 2). The eastern boundary is defined by dense revegetation undertaken in mid-late 1990s by QPWS, which is encroaching into the cemetery area and make identification of the full extent of the cemetery difficult. A ploughed field that has also been revegetated by QPWS, although more recently, defines the eastern boundary. Originally there were grave markers at the cemetery, however, these markers have gradually been removed over the years. The base of one headstone remains at the cemetery and has 'Petrie, Brisbane' engraved on it. Some graves at the cemetery are recognisable by slight depressions in the ground. 15 depressions were mapped in 2004 and are believed to be the probable location of graves. They align in at least 2 rows and are generally orientated east-west as was typical of burial styles in the late 19th century.
Settlement area/Sawmill proper
The settlement area boundary extends from the dairy farmhouse (described separately below) through to the shores of Lake Cootharaba and 150m into Lake Cootharaba itself. The area consists of a section of mounded tramway raised above the melaleuca swamp, which extends for approximately 150m to the shore of Lake Cootharaba (see Figure 2 & 3). Evidence that the area was once a thriving town is provided by the rich archaeological remains. Most identifiable of these remains are the numerous handmade bricks concentrated under a large fig tree which is less than 80 years old. The bricks were made by many different people (this includes people from the company as well as outsiders) as evidenced in the numerous 'frogs' recorded. A large metal boiler dating to the time of the mill stands near the fig tree. Although of the correct period, it is unclear if this boiler comes from the site and is not in situ. The remains of a second boiler are located within Lake Cootharaba and could be related to the 1873 boiler explosion. The remains of the tramway abutment are also located near the fig tree. All that remains above ground level are a number of metal rods and two thick pieces of timber. Two metal pipes extend from beneath the fig tree into Lake Cootharaba and are thought to be related to transporting water from the Lake to the boilers. Between the farmhouse and the shores of Lake Cootharaba are the remains of 20th century yards with hundreds of wooden fence and rail posts. Cecil Potts (a former owner) erected cattle yards in the mid-1940s. Some of the fence posts still have the remains of a three-pronged, handmade barbed wire threaded through the rail holes. Recorded artefacts include numerous pieces of metal (including rose-headed nails, files and saddle buckles), ceramics (including plates, mugs and children's toys), glass (including broken pieces of bottle), and bricks (including different frogs such as 'J. Petrie', 'CLYDE' and 'PATON').
Lake Cootharaba
The Lake Cootharaba boundary extends from the modern shoreline out into the lake 150m (see Figure 2 & 3). On the surface and embedded in the lakebed are archaeological remains including bricks, sawn timber, glass, ceramics and metal. The location of pylons from the jetties and wharves associated with the operation of the mill remain in place as large, round stumps. A large metal tram wheel is also located within the waters of the lake.
Dairy farmhouse
The dairy farmhouse is located 350m west of the settlement area (see Figure 2 & 3). A large, rendered brick chimney is all that remains of the farmhouse, a feature that probably survive from sawmill times. The brick chimney is surrounded by a fence that was erected by QPWS to limit access to the chimney by visitors to the Park and for public health and safety. Three concrete steps are associated with the brick chimney that originally lead into the house, but now go nowhere. The concrete is very coarse and of a poor quality. There is a garden associated with the farmhouse that contains a number of historic plantings including crepe myrtles, guavas and bougainvillea. Two mango tree were planted in 1924 by Vera Grady (nee Crang), whose family owned and worked the property as a dairy. Near the mango trees is the original brick-lined well dating to the sawmill period. John Crang built a wooden cover for the well that was hinged in the middle in the 1920s, this has since been replaced with a metal ring plate and a wooden platform completely enclosing the well. A windmill, also built by John Crang is associated with the well. The four large timber posts around the windmill were erected by Cecil Potts. A plaque erected in 1993 is located at the junction of a walking track from the Elanda Point camping area to the south and tramway formation to the west.
","history":"The Mill Point Settlement Site on Lake Cootharaba contains remnants of a private 'company' township based around a sawmill and sustained by timber extraction from local forests which was in operation from the late 1860s until the early 1890s.
Exploration of the timber resources in the Cooloola area commenced in the early 1860s. William Pettigrew visited the area in 1863, exploring the Noosa River and its lakes. Although Pettigrew subsequently concentrated his timber operations in northern Cooloola, he recorded quantities of hardwoods including Cedar, Bunya Pine, Kauri Pine, Hoop Pine, Cypress Pine, Beech, Ash, Tulip and Yellow-wood in various locations. Cedar-getters appear to have been working in the Noosa River area by the mid-1860s. The development of the timber industry in southern Cooloola has been attributed, at least in part, to the capital injected into the area as a result of the exploitation of the gold resource at Gympie.
An application to select Portion 1 in the parish of Noosa, the land on which the Mill Point Settlement was established, was lodged by Charles Samuel Russell in March 1869. Portion 1 was later known as Cootharaba Station and fronted Lake Cootharaba. Russell, having previously visited the Noosa area and noted the 'attractiveness' of land at Lake Cootharaba, formed a partnership with four men involved in mining ventures in Gympie: James McGhie, Abraham Fleetwood Luya, Frederick George Goodchap and John Woodburn. Although Russell's name is recorded as the applicant, subsequent references are made to 'McGhie,
Luya and Co.' as the company, which established the Cootharaba Sawmills at Mill Point.
Following his arrival in Queensland in 1864, Luya had worked on various railways until 1869 when he moved to the Gympie goldfield. He established Cootharaba Sawmills, commencing a 30-year association with the sawmilling industry. Luya established McGhie, Luya and Co., merchants and sawmillers, with an office in South Brisbane. From 1888 to 1899, Luya was also the managing director of the Queensland Milling Company. Luya's involvement in Queensland and Brisbane politics included periods as MLA for South Brisbane (1888-93 and in 1899), and as Mayor of South Brisbane (1896-98). Luya died in Brisbane in July 1899. An article in the Brisbane Courier following Luya's death described him as 'one of the leading business men of the city for many years'.
By the end of 1869, McGhie, Luya and Co. had moved onto Portion 1. Improvements including houses and a sawmill were erected in 1870. A Mill Manager was advertised for in April 1872. Although Russell and his wife lived at Elanda Point, Russell's interest was transferred to the other partners in mid-1871.
The 'second class pastoral land' of Cootharaba Station was used as a cattle property to supply meat for the sawmill company's employees and as a source of bullocks and horses to haul the company's wagons and drays.
The Mill Point Settlement was built in a swampy area on the edge of Lake Cootharaba. The swamp was progressively filled in with sawdust to create and extend the timber yards. Initially timber was taken from Portion 1 and logs were rafted down Kin Kin Creek to the lake and held in a yard by a double line of piles forming a breakwater. During later sawmill operations, timber was taken from as far away as Mount Coondoo and hauled to a tram terminus. By the early 1870s loads of timber were sent along Cootharaba Road to Gympie.
Transporting the timber was initially the most problematic aspect of the operation at Mill Point. Bullock teams became bogged in the saturated, sandy soils and Cootharaba Road had swampy sections, steep pinches and seven miles of scrub along Kin Kin and Tinana Creeks. The difficulties of Cootharaba Road were resolved with the establishment of an outlet by sea via a depot at Tewantin, which was managed by Goodchap. Flat-bottomed paddle-wheel boats known as droghers, (the 'Black Swan', 'Countess of Belmore' and 'Elanda'), towed punts of sawn timber through Lakes Cootharaba and Cooroibah to Tewantin, where the timber was loaded onto the firm's steamer, the 'S.S. Culgoa' and taken to Brisbane three times a fortnight with loads of up to 35,000 super feet of timber. The S.S. Culgoa was built in Adelaide in 1865 and used on the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers before acquisition by McGhie, Luya and Co. The Company established 'Noosa Sawmill' at South Brisbane in the early 1880s and the S.S. Culgoa carried passengers, general cargo and sawn timber on each trip between Tewantin and Brisbane until completion of the Brisbane-Gympie railway link in 1891.
To overcome the problems with swampy, sticky, low-lying and poorly drained ground conditions at Mill Point, during the mid-1870s the Company constructed a tramway system of 3ft gauge wooden rails, 4 by 2 inches in cross section, across the property. The wooden rails were wedged into slots on sleepers of penda and ironbark. The main tramway line ran for about a quarter of a mile in an easterly direction to the sawmill and settlement on Lake Cootharaba. To raise the tramway above the surrounding swampy country, felled melaleuca were laid with stout girders on top, sleepers were then laid at three feet intervals across the girders to secure the rails, gaps between were slabbed and filled with ballast consisting of sand and gravel from the Lake to provide traction for the bullock and horse teams. The line appears to have run through flat country except for one ridgeline, where a cutting reached the valley of Kin Kin. The line had relatively few curves and a gentle gradient from the hinterland to sea level at the lake. The terminus appears to have been bound by Eulama and Kin Kin Creeks, approximately 4 miles west of Mill Point.
A reporter for the Brisbane Courier in the mid-1870s noted that sections of the rail were 'smooth as glass' and one side appeared to be wearing out faster than the other. He was told that the worn side was made from ironbark wood and needed replacing once every six months, while the penda lasted two years and even then generally did not need replacing. By 1877, only penda was being used for rails, and in 1878 the wooden rails were replaced with 16 pound steel, negating the need for constant repair.
In August 1878, the Brisbane Courier reported that the 'company is preparing to lay down four miles of railway with 16 pound rails which would carry five ton wagons so logs could be hauled by three or four horses or by a small traction engine'. Logs were drawn to the sawmill along the tramway on wagons pulled by draughthorse teams; the traction engine option appears never to have been used at Mill Point. The use of the tramway was certainly much faster than the original bullock dragged method where logs were dragged from where they were cut to the sawmill for processing. It has been suggested that the Company was persuaded to establish the expensive tramway, at just under £300 per mile, to overcome the difficulties of inducing teams to work at Mill Point. However, at its peak a total of nine bullock and horse teams were employed at Mill Point. In December 1873, McGhie advertised for six bullock teams to draw cedar logs guaranteeing two years work. In late 1874, 100 men were reported as employed there and in 1878, McGhie, Luya & Co. advertised for teams, emphasising the constant work. The establishment of the tramway also provided certainty for McGhie, Lyua & Co. During periods of wet weather, bullock teams were generally unable to work, but the tramway teams could operate continually. Loading the felled timber onto the tramway wagons was done by using a winch on a trolley that was anchored to the tramway.
Five men were killed at the sawmill as the result of a boiler explosion on 29 July 1873. One man was killed instantly with another four men subsequently dying of injuries received as a result of standing near the boiler. Four of the five men died at Mill Point and were buried in the cemetery. The fifth died in Gympie after transport for treatment and is buried in the Gympie cemetery. The explosion was attributed to a weakness in the boiler rather than as a result of careless operation. The explosion was one of a number that occurred in Queensland that year and an inquest into safety ensued. Following the inquest, regulations covering the design of valves on steam boilers were tightened, and boiler operators needed a certificate to operate.
During the early period of its establishment the settlement was known as 'Kin Kin Sawmills' however it was subsequently known as 'Cootharaba Sawmill' or 'Cootharaba Village Settlement'. It has been known locally as both 'Mill Point' and 'Elanda Point' since the early 20th century. In 1871, the population of the settlement was 22 people. In May 1873, in preparation for a visit by Governor Normanby, an account of a visit by a journalist records 'Leaving the works and passing to the rear we found a regular little township of workmen's houses and others directly connected with the establishment, a good store, well-equipped, conducted by the owners, a butcher's shop, and there seemed nothing wanting to complete the comfort of all connected with the establishment'.
The Cootharaba School was established at the settlement and opened in August 1874 with an enrolment of 16 students. For the period of its operation the sawmill and associated settlement was a Company enterprise, and the only external employee was the school teacher. The sawmill proprietors provided a school building, including a library, reading room and grounds. The school also served as a community hall. In a report to Parliament in 1875, the school was described as a comfortable building with a verandah near the shores of Lake Cootharaba, better equipped than most schools in the colony.
A hotel operated from 1876 until 1878, when the building was destroyed by fire. Community life included picnics, excursions and sports days. For example, New Years Day in 1877 was celebrated with a cricket match, sawmill hands versus timber-getters and bullock-drivers.
A cemetery was established at the Cootharaba Settlement and 43 burials are recorded between 1873 and 1891, comprising 9 men, 4 women and 30 children. The first burials included four of the five men who were injured in the boiler explosion of 29 July 1873. Children buried in the cemetery died of causes such as lung problems, wasting, thrush, convulsions and drowning. The cemetery was never officially gazetted, being a private cemetery on privately owned land. Vera Grady (nee Crang) who lived on a later dairy farm in the area during the early 1900s remembered 11 grave markers at the cemetery during the 1920s. Several of the grave markers have since been collected by relatives and concerned locals and are held in the local Elanda Point Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service office. With their removal from original positions and no official record of burial locations, there is no reliable way to identify who was buried where in the cemetery. A single headstone is located in the Museum at Gympie.
During the 1880s, at the height of the sawmill's operations, it is estimated that there were between 100 and 150 employees and their families living at the sawmill and settlement.
From the mid-1880s, a series of events led to the eventual decline and closure of the sawmill complex in the early 1890s. The Queensland Government's introduction of royalties in 1884, intended to control wasteful cutting and competition from imported timbers, reduced the output of local sawmills and kept the price of timber down. These timber regulations were part of the provisions of the 1884 Crown Lands Act, forestry then being under the control of the Department of Public Lands. This Act established the system of perpetual leasehold and was the product of the philosophy of the new liberal government of Griffiths that the state should get a return from the private use of public resources. The new Minister for Lands, Dutton, saw the royalty as the timber equivalent of a pastoral rent. Opposition was intense, especially since the royalty was seen to give an unfair advantage to imports. By the early 1890s the softwood resources in the vicinity of the sawmill were nearing exhaustion, having been exploited for 20 years. Completion of the Brisbane-Gympie railway link in July 1891 ended the need for a ship and coach service between Brisbane and Gympie via Tewantin. The S.S. Culgoa was wrecked on the Noosa River bar in 1891 and the sawmill finally closed in 1892. The sawmill itself was eventually demolished and during the subsequent farming period materials were reused or left to fall down.
In 1891, Luya attempted to establish a 'village settlement' on Portion 1, offering leases of 40 acre blocks to prospective farmers. Eleven families moved onto the blocks in March that year and by November over half had left the area as the land proved unfit for cultivation, being either too wet or too sandy. Dairy farmers moved into the area in the early 20th century, but dairy farming was not successful either. This was partly due to the swampy country and the deficiencies of trace elements in the soil. A chimney remains as evidence of where the main dairy farmhouse stood near the former settlement of Mill Point. This chimney appears to date from the time of the sawmill and was adapted and reused during the farming period at the site.
Title records indicate that the property and its subsequent subdivisions changed ownership a number of times until it was transferred to the Queensland Government in 1983. The Mill Point area was gazetted as part of Cooloola National Park in 1985.
A commemorative plaque was laid at the site in 1988 near the junction of a walking track from the Elanda Point camping ground to the south and tramway formation to the west.
Australian poet Judith Wright visited the Mill Point cemetery and wrote a poem, first published in 1956, about life as she imagined it at the settlement during the late 1800s. The poem entitled Graves at Mill Point was written about the life of a man from the settlement known as Alfred Watt. In fact, Alfred was one of the first infants to be buried at the cemetery in 1874 at the tender age of four months and 20 days.
The local branch of the National Trust of Queensland erected a stone on 24 April 1993 bearing the inscription, In memory of the European settlers buried at Mill Point Cemetery, and engraved with the names of persons buried at the cemetery.
On 22 June 2004, six interpretive signs, designed by QPWS Elanda Point and Noosa Shire Council, were installed at key locations around the site describing some of its rich history.
","criteria":"The Mill Point Settlement Site is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the development of the timber industry in the late 19th century. As remnant evidence of a substantial timber extraction and timber processing enterprise and timber settlement in the Cooloola area from 1869 to 1892, it is important in illustrating the pattern of settlement in the Noosa hinterland. It was one of the first and most successful timber mills in the Cooloola area and played an important role in legislative reform in the boiler industry in terms of health and safety following the boiler explosion of 1873.
|The survival of extensive remnant material associated with the tramway, the cemetery, dairy area, jetties and wharves at Mill Point, including surface and sub-surface archaeological deposits to a depth of at least 2m below ground level, has the potential to reveal further information about 19th and 20th century life and burial practices at a company timber town in rural Queensland, and about timber extraction and processing.
|The Mill Point Settlement Site has social significance to the local Boreen Point/Noosa community.
|The Mill Point Settlement Site has a particular association with the work of McGhie and Luya who were influential in the development of rural southeast Queensland through the development of company towns and involvement in the gold rushes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","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 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":16156,"place_ref":601393,"name":"Halse Lodge","alternate_name":"Hillcrest Guest House | Bay View","street_address":"2 Halse Lane","suburb":"NOOSA HEADS","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-30","description":"Halse Lodge, a two-storeyed timber guesthouse with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located on a northwestern rise overlooking Noosa, the Noosa River and Laguna Bay to the northwest. The building is approached via a long driveway from Noosa Drive to the west.
The building has a U-shaped plan with a south facing courtyard flanked by a two-storeyed accommodation wing to the northwest, a single-storeyed caretaker's residence wing to the southwest and a two-storeyed amenities wing to the northeast. The three wings are connected via open verandahs at ground level, and the building has concrete stumps with timber batten infill. The main entry is located centrally on the southwest, with a steep pitch projecting gable above a timber stair and timber ramp entry. The gable has paired corner posts with shaped timber brackets, and a timber batten tympanum.
The accommodation wing has verandahs to both levels on the northwest and southwest. The ground level has a timber batten balustrade, timber posts and shaped brackets, a chamferboard valance, single-skin exposed framed walls, and multi-paned and dual-paned french doors with fanlights. The first floor, accessed via a timber stair on the southwest verandah, has a weatherboard balustrade with open timber batten panels with shaped timber surrounds, timber posts, unlined raked ceilings, single-skin exposed framed walls, and dual-paned french doors with timber batten fanlights. The northeast end of the accommodation wing has the first floor at ground level, with a timber ramp access, and a verandah which has been enclosed with casement windows. The rear wall of this wing has weatherboard cladding, with casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods to the first floor, and a verandah at ground level. A single-storeyed kitchen has been added to the southwest of this wing, and has weatherboard cladding, casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods, concrete block stumps and contains commercial kitchen equipment.
Internally, this wing has a large dining room at ground level, and bedrooms at the first floor level. The dining room has three ante-rooms opening onto the northwest verandah, vertically jointed boarding to the walls, fibrous cement sheeting with cover strips to the ceiling and upper walls, arctic glass to the casement windows and french doors, and a timber batten arch opening to the central ante-room. The first floor contains a central corridor with rooms opening either side, and a foyer area at the northeast with a timber ramp access to the garden. Internal doors have timber batten fanlight panels, and ceilings are boarded.
The single-storeyed southwest caretaker's residence wing has weatherboard cladding, a large metal ridge ventilator, casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods, and a small fenced courtyard at the rear. Internally, it has been refitted and currently contains two bedrooms, a bathroom, office, kitchenette and living area.
The two-storeyed amenities wing has weatherboard cladding and casement windows. Internally, it contains a laundry to the ground level, and bathrooms to both levels.
A high-set activity centre, with a hipped corrugated iron roof and concrete block stumps, is located to the south of the building. This structure is similar in materials and form to Halse Lodge, and has weatherboard cladding, casement windows and a verandah to the west.
The grounds contain mature trees, including a large eucalypt near the western driveway entrance, and a mango tree to the southwest of the building. A terraced driveway and turning area has been established to the south of the building, with the ground sloping steeply to an overgrown gully and creek bed to the south and southwest.
","history":"Halse Lodge, formerly known as Bayview, then as Hillcrest Guest House, is a two-storeyed timber guest house which was substantially rebuilt during the 1920s. The site of Halse Lodge has been associated with boarding/guest house accommodation from the early 1880s. Halse Lodge is the only guest house in Noosa Heads to survive from the 1920s and is one of few sites in south east Queensland which has operated continuously as a seaside guest house from the late nineteenth century.
The land on which Bayview was erected was granted to James Forsyth, and comprised 80 acres. Title records indicate that although the land was purchased in 1871, the register was not actually signed until December 1880.
The land was transferred to Walter Hay, reputedly Forsyth's cousin, in 1881. According to family records, Hay had moved into the Wide Bay district during the 1850s, and by 1867 he leased the ferry which crossed the Mary River between Maryborough and Tinana. During the late 1860s, Hay moved to Tiaro where he ran a steamer between Maryborough and Tiaro carrying goods for Gympie and Kilkivan. By 1870, a more direct route was sought for the transportation of goods into Gympie, and Hay is credited with successfully finding/marking a route from Gympie to the Noosa River and the subsequent establishment of the town of Noosa. Lands Department records indicate that the name Nusa was used on Ham's map of Queensland published in 1871.
Hay acquired a large amount of land in the Tewantin-Noosa area, and by the 1880s was described as one of the largest land holders in the area. Hay placed an advertisement in the Gympie Times in March 1882, advertising that the house known as Bay View was available for letting. Situated on the South Head at the mouth of the Noosa River, Bay View was described as containing 10 rooms...on five acres of fenced-in land.
During the 1890s, the property was leased to Robert Walker, then to Heinrich Walkmann. Bayview was progressively enlarged, and according to local history sources, Bayview was one of two guest houses operating in Noosa by the turn of the century; the other being Laguna House located in Hastings Street. Photographic evidence indicates that by 1900, Bayview comprised a two-storeyed timber building with a detached structure at the rear. It is assumed that this forms the basis of the present building.
Title records indicate that the property was transferred to Charles Miles of Brisbane in 1904, then to Francis Henry Atkinson (Hay's half-brother) in 1910. It is understood that Hay's second wife Susannah assisted Francis to run Bayview. Susannah's involvement however is is not recorded on title documents, which indicate that the property was acquired by John Donovan in 1918.
Bayview was substantially rebuilt and extended during the 1920s, after which time it was known as Hillcrest Guest House. The property was subdivided in 1925; Leslie Hay acquired Sub 1 of Portion 171 which comprised just over 11.5 acres. The property was transferred to John Jones in 1929, and it is understood that the Jones and Hindmarsh families continued to run the guest house until the late 1950s.
The gradual development of Noosa as a tourist resort during the early twentieth century, increased during the 1920s as cafes and accommodation houses were erected along the beachfront (Hastings Street). The rise in car ownership, and increase in the amount of time people had available for leisure during the 1920s and 1930s meant that Noosa, like other coastal areas in south east Queensland, grew in popularity as a focal point for resort and recreation. A 1944 guest book from Hillcrest indicates that guests came from Brisbane, elsewhere in Queensland, interstate and overseas; a number of guests were sufficiently inspired by the house and its setting to record their impressions in verses and sketches.
Hillcrest Guest House was acquired by the Anglican Church in 1959, and renamed Halse Lodge, after Archbishop Halse. By this time the property included just over 2 acres of land. Between 1959 and 1988 few alterations were undertaken to the building, which was used mainly for group accommodation of up to 80 people. Halse Lodge was leased to managers in 1988.
Substantial renovations to Halse Lodge were undertaken in 1988, including the additions of a new front entry and kitchen block, demolition and erection of a new ablutions wing, refitting and re-roofing the caretaker's wing, erection of a new activity centre. Minor alterations were also undertaken to the main buildings, including reopening the verandah at the rear of the dining room, and the addition of internal doors to some of the upstairs rooms. Halse Lodge is presently operated as a guest house and has a capacity of around 60 people.
The name of the town was changed from Noosa to Noosa Heads in 1988. As a consequence of the ongoing development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort, the Hastings Street streetscape and Noosa Heads townscape have undergone many changes, including the demolition of the timber guest houses which formerly lined the street; Laguna House was demolished in the 1960s.
","criteria":"Substantially rebuilt during the 1920s, and still in use as a guest house, Halse Lodge maintains its association with the site of guesthouse accommodation in Noosa Heads from the 1880s. As the only extant guest house in Noosa Heads from the 1920s, Halse Lodge is indicative of early twentieth century holiday accommodation, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of the development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort.
As the site of the former Bayview, Halse Lodge is associated with the Hay family in particular Walter Hay who was active in the settlement and development of the Noosa district from the late 1870s.
|As the only extant guest house in Noosa Heads from the 1920s, Halse Lodge is indicative of early twentieth century holiday accommodation, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of the development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort.
|(Criterion under review)
|Located in an elevated position overlooking Noosa Heads, this two-storyed timber building is an important landmark in the Noosa Heads townscape.
|Halse Lodge maintains a special association with the community, evidenced by the comments in guest books at the Lodge which, over several decades have changed little in their content and express the value and special qualities which Halse Lodge holds for its visitors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19502,"place_ref":602381,"name":"Cooroy Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"14 Myall Street","suburb":"COOROY","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"The main railway station complex is bounded by Diamond Street to the north, Elm Street to the east and south, and Myall Street and Maple Street to the west. The station building is near the northern end of the railway yards, east of the North Coast railway line. The goods shed and crane are opposite the station building, on the west side of the line.
Station Building
The station building has a gabled corrugated iron roof that varies in width and height on the east side, but which is integrated along the west side to form an awning extended over the platform. This awning is supported on curved timber brackets. A small skillion extension has been added to the north of the office, on the east side of the waiting shed. The building is 22.6m long, and is clad with weatherboards. Its components, from north to south, include: a male and female toilet section (3.6m by 3m); a waiting shed (5.8m by 3 m); an office (7m by 4.9m); and a former signal cabin (6m by 4.3m). The main entrance to the station building consists of stairs and a ramp up to the east side of the waiting shed. To the west of the station building is a concrete platform covered with bitumen. This runs for some distance to the north and the south of the station building.
The men's and women's toilets have exposed studs to the interior, and have original windows on the north and east sides. The east and north walls of the waiting shed are also single skin, with the studs exposed internally. There are timber benches within the shelter shed, and a window to the east has been covered over. The office is lined internally with vertical timber boards, and has a ticket window and two fanlight windows on its north side, and a stable-style door on the west side. All office windows have been replaced. The office also has a door to the former signal cabin on the south side. The latter room is lined with fibrous cement sheeting. There is a modern metal roller door on its west side, a pair of timber doors on the east side, and a window to the south. The former signal cabin stands on a thick concrete slab, and has an external water tank on its eastern side. The rest of the station building stands on concrete stumps.
Goods shed and crane
The goods shed has a gabled corrugated iron roof, and is clad with weatherboards. Small eaves to the east and west sides are supported on straight timber brackets. A timber loading dock extends along the east and south side of the shed, and extends south to where a whip crane is mounted. The shed has two sliding doors and a window on the east elevation; a door on the south elevation; two sliding doors with their own small platforms on the west side, along with a window; and a small window on the north side. Internally the shed has exposed ceiling beams and wall studs, and an office or workshop area has been partitioned off at the south end, with the walls and ceiling lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Internally, each timber sliding door has a protective timber frame which it slides behind when opened.
","history":"The 1891-1916 timber railway station building at Cooroy is one of only nine nineteenth century timber country station buildings that remain on the North Coast Line, which extends from Brisbane to Cairns. Only two of these stations also have an extant goods shed and crane. The Cooroy station building, located between Maple Street and Elm Street in Cooroy, is clad in hardwood weatherboards, and has a gabled roof that extends to form an awning over the platform, supported by curved timber brackets. This particular style of station building was built in Queensland from around 1884 to 1906.
Cooroy was a logging centre well before it was a town. Development of the Noosa area was underway by the mid 1860s with timber getters active along the Noosa River and Kin Kin Creek, and a sawmill was established c1870 at Mill Point, Lake Cootharaba, to supply the Gympie goldfield with timber. As timber supplies close to the coast were depleted, the timber-getters moved inland. The land around Cooroy was part of a 5,000 acre [2 023ha] timber concession held by the sawmilling company Dath Henderson and Bartholomew from the mid 1880s until 1907, at which point the government repurchased the land and opened it for selection.
After 1891 timber was sent from the Cooroy railway station to Dath Henderson and Bartholomew's sawmill at Bulimba. A railway line had been opened from Maryborough to the Gympie goldfields in 1881, and this was extended south to Cooran in June 1889, and then to Cooroy in April 1891. Meanwhile, a line northwards from Brisbane reached Caboolture in June 1888 and Cooroy in July 1891. As a result, Brisbane was linked to Gympie and Bundaberg, and timber milled near Cooroy could easily reach the Brisbane market. Construction of the North Coast line continued until 1924, at which point Brisbane was finally linked to Cairns.
Although the Cooroy railway station was established in 1891, the town was not surveyed until 1907, and town allotments in Cooroy were sold in April 1908. Prior to 1908 the only buildings near the current business centre on Maple Street were James Duke's portable office (1891-1897), the railway station and station master's house, and JL Boden's sapling and bark store on the railway reserve (1906-1908). However, by 1910 there were three banks and two hotels, plus several cottages and stores. A butter factory was opened in Cooroy by the Wide Bay Co-operative Dairy Association in 1915, and by 1920 Cooroy had a population of 450, with an economy based on dairying, timber and bananas.
The Cooroy railway station was also a busy tourist stop from 1891, as the North Coast line stimulated tourism to the North Coast's bathing spots and mountain resorts. Given the lack of a decent road north of Brisbane prior to the construction of the Bruce Highway in the 1930s, people generally took the train to Landsborough to access Maleny or Caloundra; to Palmwoods to get to Montville, Buderim, Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headland and Maroochydore; to Nambour for Mapleton, Maroochydore or Coolum; and to Cooroy for Tewantin and Noosa Heads. At Cooroy, passengers could transfer to either horse-drawn coaches or motor cars to travel by road to Tewantin, where they could then catch a motor boat to Noosa. In early 1893 Myles and Co's Coach from Cooroy to Tewantin met the train from Gympie once a day.
In 1890 plans were prepared for 3rd Class shelter sheds to be constructed at North Arm, Eumundi and Cooroy. These were simple, rectangular gabled structures, each 24ft by 10ft (7.3m by 3m), consisting of an office and waiting shed. In April 1891 Fitzwilliam Williams was contracted to build two goods sheds and three sheds at stations including Cooroy for £664. The surviving station buildings at Palmwoods and Woombye were also originally 24ft by 10ft structures.
The 1890 building, consisting of an office and shelter shed each 12ft (3.6m) in length, was extended by a further 12ft in 1895 to include a goods shed at the north end. By 1897 Cooroy railway station consisted of a station building, siding, telegraph, 10cwt scales, loading bank, and a timber-loading stage. In 1899 a 12ft long ladies room was added to the north end of the station building, taking the total length of the building to 48ft (14.6m). The fact that the Cooroy station building had been extended twice before the town of Cooroy was even surveyed demonstrates that there was a fair amount of traffic at the station, either for timber or tourism. In 1908 two ventilation fanlights were installed in the office above the ticket window, which was smaller than the current window.
The station building was extended again circa 1916. By this time the 48ft building no longer had a goods shed section, and was instead divided into a ladies room (12ft long), waiting shed (19ft or 5.8m long), and an office (17ft or 5.2m long), the latter having already been expanded from 10ft to 16ft (4.9m) wide. This configuration of ladies room-waiting shed-office was a common feature of Queensland Railway's standard designs, although the size of each section could be increased, and smaller versions might dispense with one or more of the components. A photograph taken in 1911 shows the goods shed and the station building in its 48ft configuration, with the widened office. It also shows an unknown building, no longer extant, just to the north of the station building.
The 1916 plan called for the office to be extended 6ft (1.8m) to the south, and for the addition of a signal cabin 20ft (6m) long by 14ft (4.3m) wide to the south of the office, thus extending the building to its current length of 74ft (22.6m). The station building was also moved southwards to its current position opposite the goods shed. The goods shed is not present on a 1909 plan of the station, but it and its timber platform are extant on a 1910 plan, located west of the line and just south of the office. There was also a 1-ton crane at the station by 1916. By March 1918 the station's signalling and interlocking was completed, and was operating from the signal cabin.
The only extensions to the station building since 1916 have been a small skillion alcove at the north end of the east side of office, where a water tank was once located, and a ramp has been added to the eastern entrance of the waiting shed. The former ladies room has been divided into men's and women's toilets. A 1917 plan shows that the signal cabin had windows on rollers along its western side, but if these existed they have since been removed, and the signal cabin is now used for storage. The goods shed does not seem to have changed since 1911.
Other changes at Cooroy station over the years included the installation of trunkline telephone facilities in 1909, and gas lights in 1920. Post and telegraph services operated from the railway station between 1892 and 1911, and level crossing gates interlocked with signals were installed in 1912 (not extant). The platform was extended in 1913, and in 1915 a new loop siding was added for the Wide Bay Co-Operative Dairy Association Ltd's new butter factory. The current overhead timber footbridge to the north of the station was built circa 1985, to replace a 1961 footbridge.
Buildings that are no longer extant include a cream shed to the south of the office (shown on a 1909 site plan) that was moved to Gympie in 1918. In 1909 there was also a trolley shed and a maintenance office to the west of the line, south of the platform. On a 1916 plan a refreshment room was located to the east of the north end of the platform. The Tewantin Café was operated by Mrs Godwin for coach passengers to Tewantin, on land leased from the railways near the gates on the eastern side of the line. This café was operating by Christmas 1912, was sold to the Railway Department in August 1915, and was burnt down under suspicious circumstances on 1 October 1915. By 1920 there was an ambulance shed at the northeast corner of the railway yards.
Other removed features include an array of sidings and a crane on the eastern side of the line for loading agricultural produce and storing wagons, and a lamp room. Cattle, pig and sheep yards on the west side of the line were removed in 1977. A 1988 plan of the railway complex at Cooroy shows an inspector's house, inspector's hut, and fettler's hut to the west of the line, south of the road bridge, and an assistant station master's house north of the bridge. Most of these buildings were sold and removed in the 1980s and 1990s.
","criteria":"Cooroy Railway Station is important in demonstrating the extension of the North Coast line during the late 1880s and early 1890s to link Gympie, Maryborough and Bundaberg with Brisbane, which facilitated the extraction of timber from the North Coast area from the late nineteenth century and the expansion of agricultural settlement (principally associated with dairying) from the early twentieth century. The extension of the station building several times between 1891 and 1916 reflected its increasingly heavy use during this period. Cooroy was also an important access point for tourists travelling to Tewantin and Noosa from 1891 to the mid 1930s.
|The relationship between the station building, its platform, and the goods shed with its timber platform and metal whip crane, is important in demonstrating the functioning of a small but busy country railway station. The layout of the Cooroy station building, which includes toilets, a waiting shelter, a ticket office, and a signal cabin, is also representative of the standard Queensland Railways designs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Cooroy station building has changed little since its extension in 1916, and its associated goods shed (circa 1910) is also in near-original condition. It is one of only nine surviving nineteenth century country railway station buildings on the North Coast railway line. All of these station buildings are located between Gladstone and Brisbane and date from the 1890s. Only two of these stations retain their goods shed and crane: Yandina and Cooroy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19543,"place_ref":602423,"name":"Cooroora Masonic Temple (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Station Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"The former Masonic temple is a rectangular timber framed building clad externally with hardwood chamferboard. It is set on low metal stumps and has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. A verandah along the front appears to have been built in and a small gabled timber porch shades the front entrance and is accessed by timber stairs to each side. Windows along both sides and the front have been blocked but the front windows lighted the anterooms and not the hall proper.The blocking of the side windows to the hall has enabled the murals painted on the interior to cover the whole of each wall.
The front part of the building is an anteroom and contains portraits of Lodge Masters and Members. The interior of the lodge room is lined with vertical boards and has a coved ceiling. The ceiling and upper section of the walls is painted a traditional light blue, which also provides a suggestion of sky. Below this each wall is covered with a trompe l'oeil mural depicting famous buildings replete with Masonic symbolism. The Eastern wall depicts the Temple of Demeter and Dionysus at Eleusis, the western wall the temple of Theseus at Corinth, the Southern wall the Choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens and the Northern wall the building of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem.
The lodge room currently retains equipment and furniture pertaining to Masonic use including chairs was locally manufactured by Page.
","history":"The former Cooroora Masonic Temple was erected in 1923 and is opposite the railway station in the small Sunshine Coast hinterland town of Pomona.
The land on which it is situated was part of an Agricultural Allotment of 160 acres occupied under license by Robert Peter Grant in 1896. The area developed in the early 20th century with an economic base of timber, dairying and fruit growing. Page Furnishers Pty Ltd, a furniture making concern established in 1919, has also been a major source of local employment. The township of Pomona was named in 1900 for the Roman goddess of fruit and for much of the 20th century acted as a service and administrative centre for Noosa Shire.
Freemasonry was established in Pomona in 1913. It had arrived in Australia with the first European settlers and spread from New South Wales into Queensland in individual lodges. The first Freemason's lodge in Queensland was established in 1859, shortly before Separation from New South Wales. New lodges were formed as settlement spread, as when a group of 17 Masons in Pomona applied to the Grand Lodge of Scotland to form a Lodge under the Scottish Constitution. This was consecrated as Lodge Cooroora No 1128 on 15 November 1913 at a ceremony at which 78 people were present. The first ordinary meeting was held on 13 December 1913. In 1920 the Lodge affiliated with the Grand Lodge of Queensland under the English Constitution and on 21 April 1921 joined the United Grand Lodge of Queensland as Cooroora Lodge No. 232.
For the first ten years of its existence, the Cooroora Lodge met in a hall at the Noosa Showgrounds. On 22 May 1923 the Trustees of the Lodge purchased a block of land across the road from the railway station. A temple was erected using volunteer labour and cost £800. The first meeting in the new building was held on 23 June 1923.
A local fruiterer and restaurateur, William (Bill) Hodge, who had joined the Lodge in 1920, was Master in 1924-25. In 1925 he began a project to embellish the temple that was to take nine years to complete. Working mainly in the evenings he painted trompe l'oeil murals on all four internal walls of the lodge room. These murals are replicas of those that decorated the Masonic Temple at the Criterion Restaurant, London and were featured in an article in the September 1921 edition of an English Masonic magazine, the Masonic Record. Using the small black and white photographs accompanying the article as a guide, Hodge reproduced the scenes of classical and biblical architecture on the walls of the Pomona temple. Between 1925 and 1928 he painted the Eastern and Western walls and between 1932 and 1934 the southern and northern walls. Hodge mixed the lead-based paints himself, using a neutral palette of beige, grey, black and white. During both periods he worked by kerosene light, as electricity was not supplied to Pomona until 1941. Hodge died in 1949 and is buried in Pomona cemetery.
The subjects and symbols depicted are integral to Masonic tradition and philosophy. Although materially modest in value, reflecting the economic status of the small community who met there, the murals provide a sense of richness and elegance to what would otherwise be a very simple interior. They are valued and have been cared for by the members, remaining in good condition.
It is believed that the Criterion Restaurant and the original murals were destroyed during the bombing of London during World War II and that no other known copies of the murals have been made. .
Some of the furniture in the temple was made locally by Page, possibly by Herb Page who established the original cabinet-making workshop in Pomona in 1919.
The number of lodge members peaked in 1965 at 55. Falling membership numbers and lack of funds to maintain the building have made the lodge unviable and it is about to close, the members then meeting at the Tewantin Masonic Lodge.
","criteria":"The former Cooroora Masonic Temple is important in demonstrating the development of Pomona in the early 20th century and the spread of Freemasonry through Queensland in the wake of European settlement.
|The interior murals, which embody much of the symbolism and beliefs of Freemasonry, are thought to be unique in Australia. As the original murals appear to have been destroyed by bombing during World War II, the Pomona paintings may now be the only record of this work, originally carried out in the temple of the Criterion Restaurant in London.
|The former Cooroora Masonic Temple is an intact example of a regional timber Masonic temple, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many country towns.
|The murals decorating all four interior walls of the temple have aesthetic value and represent a remarkable achievement for the artist, William (Bill) Hodge who worked from small scale black and white photographs in difficult conditions over period of many years to complete the work.
|The former Cooroora Masonic Temple has a special association with those Freemasons living in and around Pomona and with the Freemasonry movement as an early 20th century temple in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19636,"place_ref":602515,"name":"Pomona Police residence (& former station), lock-up and courthouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Red Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-27","description":"The Pomona Police and Courthouse precinct, Lot 4, P50113, covers 3297 square metres and currently contains ten structures and an impound yard. The rectangular courthouse fronts Red Street, and further west the police residence (& former station) also fronts Red Street, with a side path to the office entering from Rectory Street. A new concrete block police station has been constructed between these two buildings. The 1934 lock-up lies behind the 1934 station, to the north.
The lowset weatherboard lock-up, of standard government design, consists of two cells, an oversail veranda enclosed by a steel grill, and a galvanized corrugated steel roof with lead head nails. The lock-up stands on concrete stumps. The cells have steel doors and observation ports, with barred windows above the doors, and barred rear windows, and are lined with horizontal, unpainted boards with steel tongue inserts between them. The exterior is painted a standard government colour. Judging from its construction it is possible that it pre-dates 1934, and that it was relocated to the Pomona Site.
The courthouse is highset and clad in weatherboard, standing on concrete perimeter stumps and tubular steel centre stumps. It has timber framed window hoods clad with corrugated steel, over glass louvres, and casement windows, which have been painted white for privacy. It has vented gable ends, front and rear, with fixed louvres at the apex. Its eves are unlined, with a ventilation gap at the top of the walls. It has a wooden access ramp leading to the office at the rear of the courthouse, and a front veranda. Its interior is clad in vertical board, and the courtroom contains the original wooden magistrates bench, witness stand and dock. A small storage room is at the back of the courtroom.
The 1934 police residence is also clad in weatherboard and highset on concrete perimeter posts, with the same window hoods and casement windows as the courthouse. Its L-shaped veranda has been enclosed. A front gable contains the office, reached by side stairs leading to projecting gabled portico. A rear gable contains the kitchen. The original design contained three bedrooms and a living room, and an enclosed veranda with sliding sashes between the kitchen and bathroom at the rear of the house, but we were unable to inspect the current interior. Front and rear stairs rise parallel to the house, leading to the front veranda and rear door, respectively. Externally, apart from the enclosed verandas, the removal of the 1000-gallon water tanks, and the angle of the stairs to the office, it closely resembles the original 1932 architect's plans.
There is an unused weatherboard Earth Closet east of the lock-up. In addition there is a weatherboard shed facing Rectory Street, which is possibly the old stable that was recommended for conversion to motorcycle storage around 1956, although locals suggest that the stable was a different structure, now removed. The current shed has a casement/sash window facing the street, a single pitch skillion roof, and is timber framed and lined, with a double wooden door to the rear, and a recent roller door. Half of the shed stands on concrete stumps, with half constructed on a concrete slab.
Vegetation on the property includes two large palm trees and one smaller palm in front of the 1934 police residence, and a bottle tree in front of the 1934 courthouse. A tubular pipe fence with wire mesh runs around the property, although sections have been removed from in front of the new station building, and a construction entrance off Rectory Street.
The new concrete block police station, the concrete block toilets behind the courthouse, the old chicken-pen of recycled timber and corrugated iron (1980s) to the east of the impound yard, the new aluminium shed to the west of the lock-up, and the small garage facing Rectory Street, south of weatherboarded shed mentioned above, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Police and Courthouse precinct at Pomona is bounded by Red Street and Rectory Street, and contains three significant 1930s government buildings, all of which are still in use in some form. The close spatial relationship of the wooden police residence (& former station), courthouse, and lock-up is typical of pre-World War II Queensland police precincts, and the history of the site reflects the history of the Pomona district.
In the 1850s the area was used for cattle runs, but by the 1860s timber getting was a local industry. The Unoccupied Crown Lands Act 1860, and the Crown Land Alienation Acts 1868 aided this process. Access to cheap land assisted the harvesting of kauri, cedar, hoop pine and beech, and hastened closer settlement. The discovery of gold at Gympie by James Nash in 1867 also stimulated development in the district. The main road to Gympie (1868) ran a couple of miles west of the current Shire, but an alternative route ran through Tewantin, which was surveyed in 1871. The Gympie-Cooran rail link established in 1889 was used to transport timber from the Kin Kin and Pinbarren Scrub areas, and the Emundi to Cooroy line was built in 1891. The Co-Operative Communities Land Settlement Act 1893 also led to two experimental communities being established in the shire.
Pomona was established to give settlers in the scrublands better access to the 1891 North Coast Railway. Before Pomona was surveyed in 1900, the bend where settlers hailed the train to send their goods to market was called the "Pinbarren siding". As the name Pinbarren was already taken by another settlement, Pomona, the name of the Roman Goddess of fruit, was chosen for the new town. The Pinbarren Provisional School (1897) became the Pomona State School in 1908. The current Noosa Shire was created in 1909, and covers the towns of Cooran, Pomona, Cooroy, Tewantin and Noosa, and the Shire Council office was based in Pomona until 1980.
In the first decade of the 20th century, industry in the area shifted from timber to dairying. In 1907 the Cooroy estate was resumed from a sawmiller, enabling close settlement by New South Wales dairy farmers, and fruit, sugar cane, and maize was also grown. Kin Kin was opened up for dairying after 1904, and trees were cleared for pasture. Until the establishment of a butter factory at Kin Kin (1912-1937), cream was sent by road to Cooran, and then by rail to Gympie's butter factory, established in 1898. Butter factories were also opened at Cooroy in 1915 (closed 1976), and at Pomona in 1919 (closed 1970).
However, bananas were also an important crop in the Shire after 1908, peaking in the 1920s before being decimated by "Bunchy Top" disease in the 1930s. With the decline of banana growing, dairying was the main industry in the Noosa Shire from the 1930s to the 1960s, when competition from margarine, the loss of butter markets, and pasture decline saw dairying replaced by beef cattle. By the 1990s, Pomona was relying on fruit and furniture manufacture for its livelihood.
As the district developed and evolved, so too did the system of policing in Queensland. The Police Act 1863 centralised the system under a Police Commissioner, and in 1864 the Victorian model was applied to the police force. The ranks of Chief, District and Mounted Constables were replaced with those of Inspector, Sub-Inspector, Sergeant and Constable. The Police Department was a sub-department of the Home Secretary until its 1952 move to the Health and Home Affairs portfolio. It was shifted around in the 1950s and 1960s, until the Police Act 1970 created a separate Police Department.
The Police Commissioner at the time the first Police Station was established in Pomona (1927) was William H. Ryan (January 1925 to May 1934), and he appears to have also pushed for the building of the 1934 Police Station and Courthouse. During the building of the latter in late 1934, Cecil James Carroll was Commissioner (May 1934 to July 1949). Carroll reorganised the police force, and increased its numbers, efficiency and morale.
Pomona had been agitating for a police station since at least 1910. In February of that year, the Manager of the Commercial Bank of Australia at Pomona wrote to the Home Secretary complaining that the nearest police officer was in Tewantin. The two banks at Pomona were the only permanent banks between Emundi and Gympie, and held £2000 in cash between them. Also in February 1910, Eugene Von Blanckensee, a carpenter and local Justice of the Peace, wrote that Pomona needed a police station. The only response was that the town was visited by an officer from Nambour each Monday, and by one from Gympie each Thursday. Police Commissioner William G. Cahill (April 1905 to December 1916) did not act on the recommendation of Maryborough District Inspector Marrett to temporarily station an officer at Pomona until a station was built at Cooroy. Marrett had recommended a police station in Cooroy in December 1909, giving as a reason the rapid development of the area in the preceding two years.
Pomona was persistent, however. In June 1910 a Pomona delegation consisting of A.P. Curran, J.W Napier, and J.J. Wilkinson travelled to Brisbane to see J.G. Appel, the Home Secretary, to press their case for a police station. In July 1910 Maryborough District Inspector P. Short reported that Pomona's location was roughly half way between Cooroy and Cooran, and half way between Gympie and Nambour, and that it was 12 miles from nearest policeman at Tewantin. Short noted that the Noosa Shire's population was rapidly increasing due to timber getting, and the influx of settlers and their labour; that undesirables were also passing through Pomona on their way to Gympie; and that Pomona had two banks, two butchers, two stores, a hotel, a state school and a newspaper. Short offered several potential central sites in Pomona for a police station.
However, although both Cooran and Cooroy had police stations by 1920, Pomona was still lacking. In November 1926, Maryborough District Inspector J. Mann recommended a station at Pomona, and Commissioner Ryan visited Cooran and Pomona on 15 April 1927. On 22 April 1927 Constable Howie from Cooran reported that a Mr Blanckensee was willing to build a house for the police in return for a 3-year lease. He needed 3 months notice to build it, and could rent it to the police for 27 shillings and 6p per week (by June the price was 30 shillings). The offer would stand to 1 August 1927.
The Police Commissioner recommended this offer to the Home Secretary in June 1927. On 9 July 1927, Pomona residents became indignant when the Co-op Stores and Hanlon's Store were broken into, and this may have prompted the police to accept Blanckensee's offer on 23 July 1927. Blanckensee built a four-room house with kitchen, bathroom and front and back verandas, along with a stable and feed-room, on his 34.6 perches of land at Sub 32 of allotments 1 and 2, Section 3. The house still stands behind the current police precinct, at 1 Railway Parade.
On 3 September 1927 the vacancy for an officer at Pomona was advertised in the Police Gazette, and the new police station was rented from 1 October 1927, in the name of Ivy Elizabeth Von Blanckensee, for 30 Shillings per week. On 10 October 1927 a Short Lee-Enfield rifle and revolver, baton, tools, horse tack, a lantern, pouches and other equipment was requisitioned for the Pomona Police Station, opened on 3 November 1927 by Constable Harry England Brown (stationed at Pomona until 1932).
On 27 May 1927, the Noosa Advocate reported a visit to the area by Attorney General J. Mullan and Undersecretary to the Department of Justice, G. Carter. They were deciding on a site for a Court of Petty Sessions in the Noosa Shire, and local businessmen promoted Pomona as a central location in the butter, timber and banana producing area. Both Pomona and Cooroy had lobbied for a court in 1915.
In December 1927 Constable Brown wrote that since Pomona had been appointed by the Governor on 15 December 1927 to hold Courts of Petty Sessions, starting on 2 January 1928, it would need a cell. A removable single-cell lock-up and an earth closet were built by the Department of Public Works on Blanckensee's property by 9 September 1928.
On 11 January 1928 Under Secretary G.A. Carter accepted an offer from the Pomona School of Arts, built in 1926, to permit the Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions (Constable Brown) to use the office attached to the School of Arts. The weekly rent would be 7 shillings and 6p, with free use of the hall for court sessions. By July 1930 Constable Brown was complaining that this arrangement lacked privacy, that a new station and courthouse was needed, and that the current 30 Shillings per week rent for Blanckensee's house was too high.
In August 1930 Commissioner Ryan recommended the idea of a new station and courthouse to the Home Secretary, given that Pomona was at the centre of the Cooroy, Cooran and Tewantin Divisions, and that the Court of Petty Sessions was held there. Since January 1928, 63 people had been arrested at Cooran, Cooroy, Tewantin, and Pomona, and 24 Police summons cases had been dealt with. Ryan stated that Pomona was important as a farming and dairying centre, and suggested building on the Police Reserve at Pomona. However, in October 1930 the Blanckensee lease was instead renewed for 3 years, at the reduced rate of 27 shillings and 6p; the amount first suggested by Blanckensee in April 1927.
Brown tried again in December 1932, shortly before Constable Robert H. Sabien, who was to be stationed at Pomona until 1940, replaced him. Brown argued that since the Blanckensee lease would expire in October 1933, a new police station and courthouse, a second cell, a stable and an earth closet should be built. He mentioned that the earth closet and single cell lock-up from the Blanckensee property could be reused. With regard to his current Court of Petty Sessions office, he stated he had "put up with" a lot of interruptions in the previous 5 years, because of the use of School of Arts hall by community groups during the day. It is interesting to note that the number of people appearing before Queensland's magistrate's courts fell from 30,000 to 25,000 between 1930 and 1933, only to increase to 35,000 by 1939.
On 26 April 1933 a memorandum to the Under Secretary of the Home Department reported that about 2 and a half roods of suitable land had been found 12 chains from the railway station, near the 1927 police station. The owner, L. Horrocks, wanted £100 for it. The memorandum stated that the Police Reserve on the South West of Pomona was 20 chains from the business centre, which could be a problem when moving "obstreperous" prisoners. By this time the Court of Petty Sessions office at the School of Arts was being provided at no cost to the Police.
By October 1933 Blanckensee was only willing to renew the lease on the station for a minimum of 2 years, as he claimed that other tenants were interested. However, the Police seem to have gained an extension for a year, since the final lease was set to expire on September 30, 1934.
On 13 June 1934 the Department of Public Works commenced construction of a police station/residence, two-cell lock-up, courthouse and stable. Three carpenters and one labourer were put on the job, and it was estimated that the work would take about 10 weeks. In the end, work was completed by 31 August 1934, and Blanckensee's house was vacated on 1 September the new police station being occupied the same day. In October 1934 the Department of Public Works gave Police Commissioner Carroll official notice that Job # 37537, ordered on 3 April 1934, had been completed at a cost of £1030. This notification seems to only apply to the police station/residence itself, as an identical station was erected at Mitchelton in Brisbane in 1935 for £1221. The courthouse apparently cost £524.
In July 1932 Assistant Supervising Architect of the Department of Public Works, Harold James Parr had designed the plans for the Police Station, Type Two, erected at Pomona. Records indicate that sixteen Type Two stations were built in Queensland in the 1930s. The Type Two was high-set, with wooden weatherboards, an office 12' by 11', three bedrooms at 12' by 12', a living room of 16' by 12', and a kitchen of 11' by 12'. It came with a stove recess, pantry, bathroom, open 8' verandas on two sides, an enclosed veranda to rear, two 1000-gallon water tanks on stands next to the house, and a laundry under the kitchen.
Pre-World War II police stations commonly combined an office and a residence, especially in rural areas. Accommodation problems had always been rife in the 19th century and early 20th century Queensland Police Force with the Government being slow to provide money. During the 1930s Great Depression the police were also responsible for distributing unemployed relief, and most stations needed more office space to administer the Intermittent Relief System.
Until 2004, only small changes had been made to the 1934 precinct. In 1940 Constable James Elstob (1940-1942) made a request to garage his private car under the house, noting it would be 39' from the cells, 66' from the courthouse, and 69' from the stables. In 1951 Sergeant 2/c F.S. Tapsell, (1946-1951) wrote that the buildings had been painted externally, but that the five main rooms of the residence had never been painted internally and were in sore need of it. In 1956 Sergeant 2/c P.H. Gimpel, (1951-1960) requested minor repairs and additions, for example mosquito and frog-proofing of all water tanks, an awning over the back entrance landing of the residence, and repairs to the two earth closets.
Also in 1956, the stationing of a motorcycle outfit in Pomona led to a request by Gimpel to modify the disused stable by enclosing the front of the stable, and adding a door. The bottom portion of the wall at the rear of the stable would have to be removed, a double door erected, and a concrete floor laid.
In 1965 and 1967 Senior Constable Alan Walker (1964-67) requested a septic system, and in 1968 this request was repeated by Senior Constable Luis Olsen (1968-73), who also asked that the back entrance landing be enclosed, as well as part of east veranda, where rain was beating against the doors into the main bedroom and the lounge.
Pomona was a two-man station between 1949 and 1963, and there was a second police residence somewhere in Pomona. A 1963 report on staffing at Pomona by the Maryborough Inspectors Office said that one officer had managed the station for 10 months between mid 1961 and the end of 1962 and that it was possible to reduce Pomona to a one-man station again, especially since the new Bruce Highway had bypassed Pomona in December 1962. The report also noted that Courts of Petty sessions were held at Pomona for the Police divisions of Pomona, Cooran, Cooroy and Tewantin. A Stipendiary Magistrate was stationed at Gympie, and visited when required. In 1987 the Magistrates Court moved to Noosa Heads, and the lock-up ceased its role around that time. It is now a Registered Property Point for police storage.
The courthouse is still in use 3 days per week (Tuesday to Thursday), and the Pomona Court Registrar handles civil matters such as small claims, minor debt claims and claims, pre-trail hearings and payment of court fines as well as other general government matters including Registrar-General work and business name applications. Most work is done through the mail. In 2001 the court had a civil jurisdiction of 12000 people, in Cooran, Cooroy, Kin Kin, Pinbarren, and Pomona.
In 1963 Sergeant G. Williams (1961-1963) had requested a lowset office, as the steps up to the 1934 station's office posed a problem for the elderly and the drunk. However, it wasn't until 2004 that construction began on a new lowset concrete block police station, between the old station and the courthouse.
","criteria":"The place illustrates the relationship between the evolution of the site and the history of the development of the Pomona township and the Noosa Shire. The changes to the site also reflect changes within Police and Justice Department policies and practices. In addition, the site illustrates the use of standard building types developed by the Department of Public Works as an economical means to build symbols of "law and order" in developing townships.
|This grouping of three government buildings, built in the same year, on the same site, is important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of, and is a substantially intact example of, a small town police station / courthouse group, and the work of the Department of Public Works, including the development of various building "types".
|As a substantially intact 1930s police station / courthouse group, the site is evocative of a past era of law enforcement in a small country town. The buildings including the police residence (& former station), courthouse and lock-up, although of modest intentions, are a good example of this type of work undertaken by the Department of Public Works, including attention to the requirements of the subtropical climate. The Interior of the courthouse (particularly the courtroom) is substantially intact and includes purpose built courthouse furniture for the courtroom, office, and verandahs.
|The precinct has a strong, ongoing association with the local community. Pomona went through a determined process of lobbying for a police station, and the precinct has played, and continues to play, its role of providing the essential functions of law and justice.
","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":28596,"place_ref":602690,"name":"Alfredson's Joinery, Pre-Cut House Workshop and Sawmill (former)","alternate_name":"Alfredsons Joinery","street_address":"28 King Street","suburb":"COORAN","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"A long, rambling timber and corrugated iron building sheltered by a combination of gable, sawtooth and skillion roofs, the former joinery complex steps down the slope from a ridge along King Street at the northwest end of Cooran. The property is set against a backdrop of treed mountains and grassed paddocks to the south, has small scale domestic/commercial buildings adjacent and overlooks the railway to the north. The building now accommodates an antique shop at street level and a joinery workshop and timber working areas below.
Approximately 65 metres long and 13 metres wide with a truncation to the northeast, the building is organised over three levels - the former joinery workshop at street level, the former pre-cut house fabrication workshop to the middle and the sawmilling area at the lower level. The former joinery complex is notable for the range of timbers used in the construction of the various parts of the building ranging from sawn and dressed timbers to logs retaining their bark.
The joinery workshop is sheltered by a large gable roof clad with corrugated iron and has a small barrel roofed rectangular lantern along the ridge towards the rear. The workshop is timber framed, clad with a single skin of oiled weatherboards and supported on high round timber stumps set into the dirt floor below. The main entrance is through wide double timber doors off the truncated side to King Street. A sign above the main entrance says 'Alfredson's'. A smaller double timber door opens off the north corner of the building. There is a rear exit at a set of timber stairs descending from the southeast corner. Exposed timber trusses support the roof and the workshop has a fine tongue and groove timber floor. A line of single skin timber partitions divides the space along the west side. The workshop is lit from each side by a range of window types and styles including sash and casement. A lathe from the early joinery workshop stands to the centre of the space and is supported on a concrete base rising up from the dirt floor below. There is a small projecting alcove to each of the long elevations. Sprinklers are installed within the roof framing. The understorey has a dirt floor and is enclosed with vertical timber boards and sheets of corrugated iron. It accommodates storage areas, timber storage racks, a range of tools and equipment and the concrete base of the lathe.
A grass and dirt driveway sloping down the property along the west side gives access to the middle and lower levels of the complex. This driveway is also part of the easement shared with the adjoining property. A lean-to garage/loading dock and office stands approximately 15 metres down the slope and extends down this side of the building to the end of the former pre-fabrication workshop which it opens into. Sheltered by a skillion roof, timber framed and standing on tall round timber stumps, the loading/office area is partly enclosed to the west with a range of cladding materials including weatherboards and corrugated iron sheeting. A single-skin weatherboard clad partition separates the loading/office area from the pre-fabrication workshop. The pre-fabrication workshop is sheltered by two roofs - a sawtooth roof throwing southern light into the northern end of the space and a skillion roof to the balance. Timber framed, the workshop has exposed dressed timber trusses, sawn timber framing to the skillion roof, rough log beams and a steel beam across the south end. Rows of round timber posts support the roofs and the workshop stands on high round timber stumps. Enclosed to the east with vertical timber boards and open to the south, the workshop has a fine timber tongue and groove floor with a set of timber rails running along the centre of the floor to the narrow loading platform to the south. A trolley with metal wheels runs on the rails. Two sets of timber stairs descend to the sawmilling area to the rear of the complex. The understorey of the pre-fabrication workshop houses various pieces of equipment and timber storage and is enclosed to the southeast by corrugated metal sheeting.
The sawmilling area, which includes timber storage/loading and log working sections, is level with the driveway on the west side and has an elevated platform to the east. It is sheltered by a metal trussed skillion roof and houses a log carriage and breakdown saw sheltered by a low narrow barrel roof to the upper level. The log carriage and saw are operational and the carriage has rails and a trolley. A small timber shed houses the recently introduced four-sider machine.
The timber loading area, log working area, understoreys to the loading/office, pre-fabrication workshop and the joinery workshop now accommodate various pieces of timber working equipment introduced by the present owner and are used for storage of timber, joinery items and a range of equipment and parts.
","history":"The former Alfredson's joinery, pre-cut house workshop and sawmill complex at 28 King Street Cooran is evidence of the long history of timber-based industry in the Noosa Shire and North Coast region. The business was also involved in efforts to address the post-World War II housing shortage. The multi-level timber building, built on a sloping site with a combination of gabled, saw tooth and skillion rooflines, provides intact evidence of a timber-based family business premises that was operated, expanded and adapted between 1933 and 1990.
Timber was the stimulus for the development of Noosa Shire. Development of the area was underway by the mid 1860s with timber getters active along the Noosa River and Kin Kin Creek. Around 1870 the township of Cooran began as a coach stop on the road from Tewantin to Gympie. This road was formed after a sawmill was established c.1870 at Mill Point, Lake Cootharaba, to supply the Gympie goldfield with timber. Logs from the mill, owned by McGhie, Luya and Co, were towed down the Noosa River to a depot at Tewantin. The railway arrived at Cooran from Gympie in June 1889, which helped the district to develop as an agricultural and timber centre. Shops were built along King Street in Cooran opposite the railway line, and the town became an important centre for loading local goods, freight, timber and produce onto the train. However, after the North Coast Railway between Gympie and Brisbane was completed in July 1891 the town of Cooroy, further south, became the main rail centre for access to Tewantin.
Timber continued to be important to the economy of Cooran. Albert Doyle was sawmilling at Cooran by 1907, and other sawmillers operating in the town prior to World War II included Renshaw and Loseby, George Renshaw, and Straker and Company. Dairy farming also grew as an industry in the Noosa Shire, and butter factories were opened at Kin Kin (1914), Cooroy (1915), Pomona (1919) and Eumundi (1920). During the 1920s the Shire boomed, and a 1926 newspaper report on a typical load of goods dispatched from Cooran by train included: bananas, beans, gooseberries, pigs, butter, case timber and log timber, cream, and opossums.
Mervyn William Henry Alfredson, born in Nambour in 1912, started his apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker with Page Furnishers in Pomona, and completed it in Gympie. He then returned to Cooran, where his father, Thorvald P Alfredson, was the railway station master. In May 1933 Mervyn Alfredson purchased 37.7 perches of land opposite the railway station from Alice McIlwraith and set up a woodworking shop. In 1937 he married Mavis Miller, and for about six months they lived under the woodworking shop, placing timber from glass packing cases around the stumps to enclose the area. No evidence of this habitation remains under the present joinery. They then moved into a house at number 7 Henry Street, which has been occupied by the Alfredson family from c.1938 to the present day, except for a period in the 1950s.
Alfredson, MA (sic) is first listed in the Queensland Country Post Office Directory of 1939, as a 'Joinery & Cabinet Maker'. Although he was rejected for defence service during World War II, as he was in a reserved industry, his workshop supplied the Army with tent floors, tent pegs and other items. In September 1942 Alfredson purchased an additional three roods and 11 perches of land from Alice McIlwraith, to the south and west of his original workshop. In July 1944 the Widgee sawmill near Gympie was purchased to supply timber to Alfredson's operation, and M.W. Alfredson & Company was also formed that year. In October 1944 title for a one quarter share in the total landholding of one acre and 8.7 perches went to Robert R. Brown, with the other three quarter shares being held by Mervyn Alfredson.
Alfredson's joinery complex appears to have been extended to the south and west, and given a skylight, in the late 1930s; and it was extended again to the south by the 1960s. By the mid 1960s the front (north) elevation of the joinery was truncated at an angle on the eastern side, as earlier photographs of this elevation do not display the current angle. The pre-cut house workshop and sawmill to the south of the joinery seem to post-date 1946. According to archived Forestry Department correspondence, in November 1946 Alfredson was seeking advice on the design of a timber seasoning yard, and was intending to erect a drying kiln and a boric acid treatment plant "in conjunction with his furniture factory and sawmill". A sketch from this time appears to show the joinery and a sawmill to its south and west. Apparently Alfredson's did have a sawmill on the western side of the joinery during the 1940s and 1950s, but they then lost the forestry license for this sawmill, and had to rely on the Widgee sawmill thereafter. However, there is still a sawmilling section at the south end of the pre-cut house workshop.
By the early 1950s Alfredson had devised a system, based on ideas he had read about in journals, of pre-cutting morticed and tenoned house frames. In partnership with Queensland Pastoral Supplies (QPS), a company which sent mail order catalogues to country customers and with whom Alfredson had worked previously, he started manufacturing pre-cut houses. The houses, their timber bundled together and stencilled for ease of assembly, were despatched on rail cars from Cooran station. They were delivered with all their components from the stump caps up, with quantity lists and plans, mouldings, doors and windows, hardware and roofing.
Pre-cut houses are sometimes referred to as "prefabricated", but more advanced forms of prefabrication involve whole walls, sections, or the complete house being manufactured off the building site, before transportation and assembly on site. Although prefabricated houses represent an attempt to bring the time and cost efficiencies of the factory assembly line to the building sector, they have never been popular, other than in times of absolute necessity.
However, pre-cut (or kit) houses have been commercially successful in Australia since at least the early 20th century, perhaps because they provided an answer to labour shortages in rural areas without carrying the stigma of being fully prefabricated. One of most successful Queensland firms supplying pre-cut houses (to country districts only) in the early 20th century was Brisbane's James Campbell & Sons Ltd; Campbell Redicut Homes was established in 1903. A Campbell's catalogue c.1920 announced that all frame timber was cut, shaped and finished to set plans. The frame was erected at Campbell & Sons' Albion mill yards to test the fit, and the timbers were marked before disassembly. All materials, including cladding and joinery (doors, window sashes, railings, steps, and mouldings) were then despatched to their destination by steamer or train.
Brown and Broad Ltd also operated in the pre-cut house market in Queensland prior to World War One, under the trade name of 'Newstead Ready-to-Erect Homes', while Rooney and Co of Townsville provided pre-cut houses to North Queensland rural areas. However, the do-it-yourself trend grew after World War II, and pre-cut houses provided one answer to the high demand and high labour costs of the 1945 to 1960 period. For example, by 1952, there were about 15 local companies manufacturing pre-cut houses in Sydney. Although pre-cut houses increased in popularity, they were still only a small fraction of total Australian housing starts, and demand peaked in the early 1950s, before falling away in the late 1950s.
Queensland Pastoral Supplies does not appear to have entered the pre-cut house market until after World War II. In October 1935 the QPS catalogue had advertised building material, tools, furniture, house wares, and joinery, but no complete houses. By August 1940 houses were being advertised at prices of £150 and £205, but the timber was supplied in random lengths rather than being pre-cut. However, the 1954 QPS catalogue advertised Cooran Pre-Cut Homes, and included two articles from the 9 August 1953 edition of the Truth newspaper.
The first Truth article noted rising housing costs, and claimed that after months of planning, QPS had tackled the problem, offering a 740 square foot house for just over £800. The article also claimed that the QPS had only been manufacturing the 'Cooran' home for a short period, and that a display house had been built at Dell Street in St Lucia for Exhibition Week. The materials were entirely pre-cut, so that an amateur could build the house. The 'Cooran', priced at £808 in August 1953, had six rooms (including two bedrooms), and could easily be extended. The framework consisted of hardwood, the floorboards were hardwood, and the exterior was clad with hardwood weatherboards. The interior walls were clad with V-jointed pine, the ceilings with Durabestos, and the roof with English corrugated iron. The same house design clad externally with Durabestos was offered for £690. Two smaller pre-cut houses were priced at £495 and £350, and a larger 'Hibiscus' home was offered for £1080. The second article in the Truth noted that every part of a Cooran home was marked, making it impossible to make a mistake during erection, and that every part of framework was morticed and tenoned where necessary.
The 1954 QPS advertisement went on to add that that since Cooran homes had been introduced over 800 had been supplied. Specifications on the Cooran homes noted that the wall studs were tenoned to fit into the morticed top and bottom plates and interior sheeting could be either four and a half inch tongue and grove V-jointed pine (hoop pine), or fibro cement. The floor was made with tongue and groove seasoned hardwood, and mouldings were Queensland pine (hoop pine). Joinery could be made with cedar, oak, or maple timber. The price of a Cooran No.3 home (timber clad, either seven inch weatherboard or four inch chamferboard) was now £835; a Cooran No. 4 (Durabestos clad) was £720; and the frame alone could be purchased for £310. The two smaller one-bedroom models still sold for £350 (24' x 12'), and £495 (24' x 20' including verandah) respectively. A 'Lazy Dayser' skillion-roofed weekend cottage was also advertised.
A number of models of house were produced over the years, the known ones including: Hibiscus models number 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10; Cooran models 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 17 (model No.3 being the most popular); Tropical 1 and 2; plus garages, the one bedroom models, and the Lazy Dayser weekend cottage. There were also variants within the models - for example, models 3a to 3e.
The marketing of Alfredson's pre-cut houses through QPS catalogues reflected the housing shortage and concurrent building price increases that occurred in Australia after World War II. Thanks to a lull in house building during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was an undersupply of houses even before World War II. National Security Regulations issued in February 1942 limited private building to projects linked to the war effort. The undersupply of houses was exacerbated after the war by returned servicemen starting families, and also by strong post-war immigration.
Prices were also driven upwards by a shortage of skilled labour, and the legislation of the 40 hour week in 1948. Another inflationary pressure was the lack of a ready stockpile of building materials. In 1939 the average five room brick house cost £1200 pounds. By 1946 this had risen to £1800; by 1951 it was over £3000. Although wages were rising, the price of an average house also increased, from three times the average pre-war income, to five times the average income by 1950.
When cost increases were combined with the Australian Government's decision to limit the area of new houses to 1200 square feet for timber and 1250 square feet for brick until 1952, the result was 'Austerity' housing, and the increased use of functionalist design. Functionalism viewed the house as "a machine for living", where form followed function and efficiency was more important than ornamentation. After the war functionalism would be widely adopted out of the necessity to reduce building costs.
Austerity houses were small, with an eye to the future addition of bedrooms as families expanded. To save on the cost of building materials and labour, living rooms and dining rooms were combined into one space, entrance halls disappeared with the arrival of the 'L' shaped house, and verandahs shrunk to small cantilevered porches over the front door. People made do with one chimney, and pretentious ornamentation was dropped. Building materials increasingly included asbestos cement (sold by Wunderlich as 'Durabestos' and James Hardie as 'Fibrolite'), and compressed fibre boards such as Masonite and Cane-ite, as well as Timbrock hardboard. In the southern states a brick veneer over a timber frame became more popular.
The emphasis was also on do-it-yourself building, as labour counted for about 50% of the cost of a house by 1948. Magazines such as "Australian Home Beautiful" catered for the proliferation of owner-builders in the 1950s, and newspapers featured stories on the housing issue and possible solutions, as can be seen by the Truth articles on Cooran homes. Between July 1951 and March 1955 around 140,000 Australian houses were owner-built; more than one third of the total.
A government response to the housing shortage was the 1945 Commonwealth State Housing Agreement, and the Queensland Housing Commission (QHC) was formed that year, tasked with building houses for rent or purchase. By 1959 the QHC had built nearly 23,000 state houses, and about 96,000 state houses were built in Australia between 1945 and 1956. The housing shortage had ended by 1960.
In response to the housing shortage, M.W. Alfredson & Company produced at least 1,200 pre-cut houses by the mid 1960s, when marketing through QPS ended. These included five houses built in Cooran, for Alfredson's staff, at 4, 5, 6 9 and 11 Henry Street; and four houses built in Cooran in the 1950s for the QHC. In 1965 a total of 62 houses were delivered to the Presbyterian Church's Weipa Mission at Cape York. Pre-cut houses had been delivered as far north as New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and as far south as Casino, New South Wales. Western Queensland station properties might order up to five houses over a period for their workers.
Up to Mervyn Alfredson's death in 1973, about 120 houses were also custom designed, supplied and built locally, including several extant examples in Pomona: at the corner of Exhibition Street and Pavilion Street; at 7 Pine Street; and behind the Catholic Church. Alfredson died after he was hit by a falling limb from a cypress tree at Inskip Point near Rainbow Beach. Mervyn's share of the land was transferred to Mavis in 1982, and Brown's quarter share was transferred in 1985.
Mervyn and Mavis's daughter Jeanette had worked at M.W. Alfredson & Company from the time she finished school, becoming proficient in all aspects of joinery and manufacture as well as doing office work. With her mother's health failing, she gradually assumed control of the business, which concentrated on the production of specialist timber joinery and cabinet making for custom orders. Government tenders were won, especially for schools. Doors and windows were also supplied for the Public Works Department in Queensland. Over the years a large number of people from Cooran and nearby towns were been employed by M.W. Alfredson & Company. At its peak the business employed 32 men, plus logging contractors, carriers and subcontractors, and over 60 apprentices learnt their trade in the factory.
A weatherboard clad building at 32 King Street, with folding garage doors and a saw tooth roof, was constructed in 1962 as an office for Jeanette Alfredson, and was known as the "front office" of the joinery. Behind the office was an area for sharpening tools, and underneath were quarters for the single men. Part of the building was used as a garage, and it still has a maintenance pit in the floor under a trapdoor. This building is not included within the heritage boundary.
After Jeanette retired, the land was sold to Kesselwood Pty Ltd in March 1991 and to Kidman's Pty Ltd shortly thereafter. In 1997 the 37.7 perches of land purchased by Mervyn Alfredson in 1933 (allotment 38) was split 50-50 between Kidman Pty Ltd and Marbelle Pty Ltd, while Kidman Pty Limited continued to hold all of Lot 41 (Alfredson's 1942 land purchase). In 1998 the total acreage previously owned by Alfredson was subdivided into its current configuration. Alfredson's complex now stands on lot 42, a combination of former lots 38 and 41 that has been fully owned by Marbelle Pty Ltd since 1998.
In 2007 Alan Guymer operates a traditional joinery workshop on the former pre-cut house workshop (underneath and to the south of the former joinery), although his main business is building and demolition. The current machinery within and under the pre-cut house workshop, and most of the machinery in the sawmill section, was introduced by Alan. An original log carriage and its metal rails is still in situ in the rear sawmill shed, and original timber rails survive running north-south along the floor of the pre-cut house workshop, along with some metal gantry rails running east-west across the ceiling.
The top level of the building, the former joinery, is now called the Cooran Trading Post and Second-Hand Dealers (furniture). The shop still contains a lathe which is supported on concrete piers under the floor. There is no internal stairway between the former upper and lower workshops. Many of the building's stumps have been replaced by Alan over the years, and since 1990 he has also enclosed parts of a skillion roofed extension to the building west of the pre-cut house workshop.
","criteria":"In the first half of the 20th century, the milling of timber and the manufacture of timber products was an integral component of the North Coast timber industry, a major industry for Queensland. Alfredson's Joinery complex is a rare surviving example of the pre-World War II era of sawmilling and joinery operations on the North Coast, and is also a rare example of a post-World War II pre-cut house workshop. The lathe and log carriage are important as rare surviving equipment from those operations.
|Alfredson's joinery, pre-cut house fabrication workshop and sawmill (former), built and expanded between 1933 and the 1950s, is important surviving evidence of the timber industry in the Noosa Shire and the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) region. The timber industry played a major economic role in the history of the North Coast region, which from the 1860s was one of the most important timber producing regions in Queensland. Alfredson's is important evidence of the manufacturing aspect of the area's timber industry from the 1930s to the 1980s. Its location at Cooran was close to timber supplies, and the adjacent railway facilitated the shipment of the joinery's products.
The establishment by Alfredson's of a pre-cut timber house fabrication workshop in the early 1950s is representative of the response of timber firms to the Australia-wide post-World War II housing shortage.
|In its layout the Alfredson's Joinery complex is important in demonstrating the linear operation of a timber manufacturing process. This is evident in the planning and organisation of the sawmilling and pre-fabrication workshop where timber was unloaded and worked in the sawmilling area and then moved by trolley to the fabrication area where the timber passed through a number of bench and cutting processes. The finished fabricated components were then dispatched through the western loading dock. The construction of sawtooth roofs to the prefabrication workshop and lantern to the joinery workshop are good examples of the standard design practice of introducing as much daylight as possible into workshop spaces, particularly southern light in the case of the sawtooth roofs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30229,"place_ref":602688,"name":"Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lower Mill Road Cooroy","suburb":"COOROY","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"Structures remaining from the drying kiln complex operated by sawmillers Wilkinson and Sons Pty Ltd and Straker and Sons Pty Ltd stand on the Cooroy Lower Mill site in an open grassed paddock to the east of Lower Mill Road on the north side of the town of Cooroy. They are within a larger industrial estate of modern sheds. To the southeast of the kiln complex a grassed track crosses the creek and connects the site back to the former Cooroy Butter Factory now operating as an art gallery and community centre.
The kiln complex consists of a boiler shed with a prominent tall stack, hopper and chutes, control room, reconditioning chamber, a four chamber drying kiln and associated equipment, fixtures and fittings including a steam engine and electric generators in the boiler shed.
Drying kiln
An in-situ concrete structure with a flat roof, the drying kiln consists of four discrete chambers 19.5m long and 4m high. Each chamber is open at the north end and accessed by a hatch door from the control room at the south end. Trolley rails run within each chamber between narrow concrete platforms. Fans are fixed to and pipes, ducts and conduits run along the ceilings. Rails for a transfer line run across the north entrances to the chambers. Four sets of twin wheels and belts are fitted to the top third of the exterior west wall beneath the overhanging eaves. A projecting timber walkway with a timber balustrade runs along beside them.
Reconditioning chamber
A hollow in-situ concrete channel rectangular in section, the reconditioning chamber stands to the east of the drying kiln. Trolley tracks run within the chamber between narrow concrete platforms. The lower third of the north opening is concreted and the south end is sealed with a small opening for the air duct.
Control room
The control room comprises a narrow corridor running between the boiler shed and the kiln. It is sheltered by a skillion roof off the south side of the kiln chambers, clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The room contains pipes, valves, gauges and other equipment that regulates the functioning of the kiln chambers. Each chamber has a viewing window and hatch door access from the control room.
Boiler shed
A tall rectangular, single-skin, timber framed shed clad with chamferboards and sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron, the boiler shed is dominated by the boiler. Standing on a concrete slab floor, the metal encased boiler is supported on a brick base. A timber framed and clad chute feeds into the boiler from a hopper in the northeast corner of the shed and an exhaust stack projects from the boiler through the roof. Metal ladders are fixed to the north and south sides of the base of the stack. The tall chimney stack is secured externally with metal ties.
Direct current and alternating current generators stand to the north of the boiler and each has a maker's plate from the English Electric Company Ltd London.
A tall timber framed tank stand stands to the west of the boiler shed. There is no tank.
Hopper
A rectangular box tapering from base to top, the hopper has an external stud frame and a single skin of weatherboards. Twin fibreglass exhaust ducts project through the flat timber roof. A narrow hinged door opens out on the north side and a metal pipe runs up the northeast corner turning into the hopper near the top. A narrow timber platform to the northwest accommodates a small motor and a set of timber stairs at the southwest end descend from the roof of the hopper to flat roof of the reconditioning chamber. A timber chute runs from the base of the hopper up into the hopper in the boiler shed.
Adjacent to the kiln site
East of the kiln site, remnants of a former sawmill lay scattered about including trolleys, rails and concrete plinths. The site is presently used as an open sawmilling area. This area is not included in the listing boundary.
","history":"The Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln, located in the Sunshine Coast township of Cooroy, was a timber drying kiln built in late 1956 by the prominent South Queensland sawmillers, J Wilkinson and Sons Pty Ltd and Straker and Sons Pty Ltd.
South Queensland produced the largest amount of timber in the State by the middle of the 20th century: in the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) region, timber was one of the most important industries in the 1950s. As late as the 1980s, a hardwood mill operating at Nandroya near Cooroy was claimed to be the largest in the State.
The kiln at Cooroy was the product of a post-World War II trend in the sawmill industry towards centralisation and larger operations to enable economies of scale. One of the motivations for this trend was the need to acquire technology like drying kilns in order to remain competitive. The amalgamation of sawmills made greater funds available for this equipment. Improvements in road transport, which enabled timber to be transported from a wider area, made the trend towards bigger centralised operations feasible.
By 1956, Straker and Sons and J Wilkinson and Sons already owned several milling operations on the North Coast. The Strakers owned the Cooroy Sawmilling Company located next to the kiln together with mills at Cooran and Gympie. J Wilkinson and Sons owned sawmills at Yandina and Conondale. The two organisations partially merged in 1956 to form Kiln Dried Timbers Pty Ltd, the company that operated the kiln and an adjoining planing mill (no longer extant). The kiln enabled the partners to accelerate the process of seasoning hardwood from their mills including flooring and chamfer boards and to expand their market to include far western Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne. These markets demanded lower moisture content than could be achieved by air drying. The kiln was claimed to be the first built on the North Coast.
As built in 1956, the kiln comprised a steam heated, cross shaft internal fan design that was common in Australia at the time. The design was obtained by the company from CSIRO. It consisted of four double chambers 64ft (19.5m) by 48ft (14.6m) each with a height of 13ft (4m) and a capacity of 9000 super feet. They were fabricated from concrete. Carefully stacked timber was transferred into the kiln using trolleys on rails. Heat was generated by a 100hp (74.6kW) boiler and transferred to the kiln chambers by a series of tubes. Hot air radiating from the tubes was circulated in the chambers by internal electric fans. The temperature in the kiln was designed to reach around 120°F (49°C).
The boiler was fuelled by waste from the adjacent sawmill via a hopper and chutes (all extant). As well as providing steam for the kiln, the boiler powered a steam engine and electric generator (extant). Electricity from this was used to power the electrical plant including the fans.
Also extant on the site is a reconditioning chamber adjacent to the kiln. This chamber was used to treat a condition called 'collapse' brought about by abnormal and excessive shrinkage. The collapsed timber was steamed in a closed chamber with saturated steam at atmospheric pressure for a period of about six hours. Steam was injected into the chamber via a single perforated steam pipe.
By the 1970s, an increasingly challenging timber industry made it necessary for Strakers and Wilkinsons to undergo a further amalgamation. They were also joined by the Lutton family's sawmilling operation and together they formed North Coast Sawmills Pty Ltd. The new company opened the large hardwood mill at Nandroya. This enabled the use of more efficient modern machinery and logs were sourced from a wider area.
North Coast Sawmills' Cooroy mills were bought by Quintex in the 1980s and subsequently Boral Timber. Boral used the kiln and planing plant to produce and dry boards for flooring and decking. The kiln was closed in the early 2000s under the terms of the Regional Forests Agreement. In 2007, the kiln and adjacent sawmill sites were undergoing redevelopment as a public recreational precinct.
","criteria":"The kiln is a highly intact example of a steam heated, cross shaft internal fan design. This design was once common in the industry. All of the operating elements of the facility remain intact including the fuel system, boiler, steam engine and electric generator, most of the heating tubes, fans, kiln chambers and reconditioning chamber.
|The Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln (1956) is important in demonstrating the development of the State's timber industry insofar that it is a rare example of a timber drying kiln established on the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) when the region was recognized to be one of the State's most important timber producers.
As the first drying kiln to be built in the region, it demonstrates the trend from the mid-20th Century towards improving efficiency using more scientific methods. As the product of a joint venture between major sawmilling companies, it also demonstrates the trend, at the time, towards centralizing operations to finance shared capital equipment. The drying kiln enabled timber to be seasoned more rapidly and it enabled timber to be sold to markets that demanded lower moisture content than could be achieved by air seasoning.
|The kiln is the only known example of a timber drying kiln in the Sunshine Coast region and it remains in a highly intact condition. A large number of sawmills and associated facilities were once located in this noted timber producing region. However, owing to economic and environmental factors, intact facilities have become increasingly uncommon since the middle of the 20th century.
|Dominated by the tall rusting stack of the boiler, the surviving elements of the drying kiln complex are a monumental presence in the landscape. The place has an arresting impact as an industrial ruin - the concrete hulk of the kiln chambers, the rusted galvanised iron and weathered timber, the slowly decaying remnants of machinery, equipment, fixtures and fittings - all combine to evoke a tough industrial aesthetic.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30231,"place_ref":602686,"name":"Kin Kin Sawmill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Sister Tree Creek Road Kin Kin","suburb":"KIN KIN","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"Standing against the backdrop of the surrounding hills on Sister Tree Creek Road west of the town of Kin Kin, the Kin Kin Sawmill occupies a flat open area to the east of Kin Kin Creek. The structures associated with the sawmill operations comprise the large open mill shed, a small timber office building, a number of timber and corrugated iron sheds and the sawdust/waste area. The site also accommodates timber storage areas and forklift and other vehicle parking.
Sawmill shed
Standing close to the road at the southeast corner of the site, the heart of the mill operations is an open timber framed shed with corrugated iron clad roofs. The main part is sheltered by a gable roof the north side of which extends west over the docker area and northeast with a small skillion roof over the number two bench. The shed is framed with sawn and unsawn timber, the roof supported by round posts. The compact milling operation is organised around the sequence of saws and the accompanying benches, motors, trolleys and rails accommodated within the shed. The saws stand in a line from the breakdown saw (Canadian saw) to the south to the number two bench saw to the north. Timber logs are stacked by forklift at the southwest, rolled onto a trolley where they are secured with a dog and run through the breakdown saw for the half cut. The cut logs then roll across to the number one bench saw where the bark is stripped and the half logs are cut into 2" (50mm) or 2.5" (62.5mm) width planks. The cut planks are stacked north of the number one bench and taken across to the number two bench saw where they are cut into thinner 1" (25mm) boards which are stacked to the west and taken across to the docker where they are cut into shorter lengths (mostly 6 metres). From here the boards pass to the groover where the sides are grooved before being placed in the pallet stack west of the log stack. A number of trolleys on rails take the offcuts and waste from the various bench areas out to the west side of the shed.
The original hand operated winch for moving logs through the breakdown saw stands to the east of the trolley rails for the breakdown saw and the early electrical insulators trace the original path of the cabling along the underside of the roof.
","history":"The Kin Kin Sawmill, established in 1948 by Arthur Hempsall and his son Lionel, is located midway between Gympie and Noosa in the Sunshine Coast township of the same name. The Hempsall family owned the mill until 1991 when it was sold to Geoff Ellis. It continues to operate as a small mill with much of its original machinery and layout still intact.
South Queensland produced the largest amount of timber in the State by the middle of the 20th century: in the North Coast region, there were some 122 sawmills in 1949, the largest number in the State. The quantity of logs cut on the North Coast in 1947-48 was over 40000, the third largest in the State behind Brisbane and Atherton.
The Kin Kin sawmill was originally established to produce wooden packing cases for the local fruit growing industry. The North Coast was an important fruit growing region and during the first half of the 20th century, Kin Kin was one of the State's most productive banana growing areas. The sawmill produced cases for bananas, pineapples, beans, apples and plums. Cases were railed from Pomona railway station to destinations as far afield as Brisbane and the fruit growing areas near Stanthorpe.
Case milling was an important industry associated with fruit growing. It was valued because it provided a useful outlet for timber which would otherwise have no economic value. There was a high demand for fruit and vegetable cases in the immediate post-War period with case milling peaking in 1949. 45% of cases were manufactured for packaging fresh fruit but they were also used for a range of other foodstuffs and manufactured goods. By the early 1950s, corrugated fibre board containers, developed during World War II, began to compete with the traditional wooden cases and the latter experienced a steady decline in use. By 1955 - 56 there were still some 58 wooden case manufacturers in the State comprising mostly small firms. Some 40% of the case millers in Queensland also milled timber for other uses.
Although not dissimilar in layout to other types of sawmills, case mills were typically smaller in scale owing to the smaller size of the logs that were milled and the smaller size of the end product. A three person mill, comprising a single circular saw bench (number one bench) and a docking saw, could produce up to 500 cases per day. Logs were broken down at the number one bench into longitudinal lengths of timber (flitches). The flitches were cut to required length at the docking saw. Waste material from the initial breaking down process (including edging) was cut down for firewood at the docking saw or disposed of. The lengths of timber ready for assembly as cases were known as 'shooks'.
Larger, general purpose mills typically comprised three circular saws and a docker. The initial break-down of the log was usually carried out at the Canadian bench (the largest circular saw). Further sizing was carried out at number one and two benches and the planks were cut to length at the docker.
When initially erected, the Kin Kin mill comprised only the number one saw bench and a docking saw. Both of these saws are still extant, but the docking saw has been relocated within the shed. The saws were powered by a tractor. Probably from the early 1950s after the mill was connected to electricity, a Canadian Saw, and number two bench were added and the docking saw was moved. The mill layout has remained largely unchanged since then. In its present form it resembles a typical sawmill layout of the 1950s. The original hand operated winch for moving logs through the breakdown saw remains extant and also the early electrical insulators tracing the original path of the cabling along the underside of the roof.
The mill originally cut soft wood timber for cases. This was cut to the required lengths and then packaged for delivery to the farmers who assembled the cases. The mill subsequently moved into cutting timber for pallets, and hardwood milling for electricity pole cross-arms and railway sleepers. In 2007, the mill was cutting softwood for assembly into packing cases for glass. It is one of the few sawmills of its era that is still operating on the North Coast.
","criteria":"The sawmill is uncommon in the region as an intact example of a small saw mill originally established to produce timber for fruit packing cases. Mills of this type were common in the fruit growing areas of the State until the late 1950s when the use of wooden packing cases declined.
The mill is also uncommon in the region for its continuity of operation since the 1940s. The basic layout of the shed remains largely unchanged since the 1950s and original items of machinery continue to form key components of the operation. Economic and environmental factors have meant that sawmills of this era have become increasingly rare.
|The Kin Kin Sawmill (1948) is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's timber industry insofar as it was established when the North Coast (now the Sunshine Coast) was one of the most important timber producing regions in the state. During the period that the mill was established, the North Coast contained more sawmills than anywhere else in Queensland.
As a sawmill originally established to produce timber for fruit packing cases, it is also important in demonstrating the evolution of the State's fruit growing industry. At the time, the North Coast was among the most productive fruit growing regions in the State. It is also indicative of the former use of timber as a material for packing cases. By the 1950s, timber was being superseded by corrugated fibre board as the preferred material for packaging.
|The sawmill is a highly intact example of a small sawmill originally established to produce timber for packaging cases. The layout and all of the components typically found in a small mill of the 1950s remain including: the characteristic open-sided shed, early electrical insulators tracing the route of the original cabling, breakdown (Canadian) saw, number one and two saw benches, docking saw, original hand operated winch, rails and trolleys. The milling operation continues to follow the traditional packing case sequence of initial cut at the breakdown (Canadian) saw, sizing at the number one and two benches and cut to lengths at the docker.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30255,"place_ref":602706,"name":"Noosa River Caravan Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Russell Street","suburb":"NOOSAVILLE","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"Occupying 2.98 hectares of waterfront land off Russell Street at Noosaville, the Noosa River Caravan Park is a green and leafy site with grassed areas and scatterings of trees, shrubs and hedges on the sandy river front at Munna Point. Bounded by the Noosa River to the northwest and Weyba Creek to the northeast, the park offers expansive views up and down the Noosa River and across to Noosa Sound.
The park offers powered and unpowered van and tent sites, river front beaches and a day picnic area. Facilities include a large open camp kitchen shed, a boat ramp access to Noosa River and two masonry amenities blocks. A caretaker's residence and office stand near the entrance off Russell Street. There are a number of parking spaces along the northwest side of the spine road.
The park is organised off a spine road which runs the length of the site with finger roadways running off to the southeast. The powered van sites each front a finger roadway and have a concrete slab to accommodate a van. There are a number of unpowered van sites to the northeast end off the circular roadway that terminates the spine. Running along the river side of the spine road from the park entrance there are the day picnic area, boat ramp and an unpowered tent area terminating at the beach at the north end. A number of powered tent sites are located to the rear of the park at the northeast and south ends. The grassed and treed day picnic area fronts the sandy edge of the Noosa River and accommodates picnic tables, BBQs and a fish gutting table.
There is no permanent accommodation offered (maximum stay is three months) and the park does not offer on-site cabins or vans.
","history":"Noosa River Caravan Park is located between Russell Street and the Noosa River at Noosaville at a site known as Munna Point. It was established in 1956 as a reserve for camping and recreation under the trusteeship of the Noosa Shire Council. Previously the land had been reserved for public purposes from 1884 and camping on the site is recorded from circa 1929. As motorised transport became dominant and leisure time increased, particularly post-World War II, this site was established as a caravan park to meet the needs of the growing number of caravanning holiday-makers whose destination was the North Coast. Its still-water river-side location, easily accessible by car from the major Tewantin to Noosa road, and its range of accommodation and amenities, which have evolved over time, demonstrate all the features of a typical caravan park.
This site was originally part of a Reserve for Aboriginal Mission Purposes that extended from a point east of Tewantin to Noosa Heads following the Noosa River, and south along the coastline, as shown on an 1871 cadastral map. One early settler in the area recorded that Munna Point was a favourite camping place and fishing spot for indigenous people and a corroborree site. The Aboriginal Mission Reserve was cancelled in 1878 and a Noosa Heads township was gazetted in the following year. In 1884 an 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes, which incorporated all of Munna Point including the future site of the Reserve for Camping and Recreation, was declared.
The North Coast region began to develop as a holiday destination at the end of the 19th century but poor access inhibited its growth. Tewantin, Maroochydore and Caloundra developed as recreational destinations from the 1880s. This reflected the preferences of the Victorian era for a calm shallow stretch of river or still-water seaside location which allowed safe bathing, boating and fishing. Camping along rivers and on reserves occurred especially over the Christmas-New Year period.
All three settlements remained small before World War I, used mainly by their small hinterland populations rather than visitors from Brisbane. North Coast tourists arrived by train at stations between Landsborough and Cooroy before using local forms of motorised transport to reach coastal destinations from railway stations between Landsborough to Cooroy. Tewantin was the largest of the three owing to its pre-existing role as a port settlement serving Gympie and the local timber industry.
As transport networks improved accessibility, the resort settlements became more popular. During the interwar period Tewantin remained more prominent than its neighbouring settlement at Noosa Heads and it continued to be important even after vehicular access was opened to Noosa Heads in 1929. Tewantin was the commercial centre and most holiday facilities were located there. A wooden swimming enclosure was located in the river adjacent to the wharves on the western bank at Tewantin from as early as 1915. The Parkyn family had a jetty, boat hire and bait business upstream from the later site of the Lake Doonella Bridge.
North Coast tourist development was fostered by substantial improvements to the region's road transport network during the interwar period. From the early 1920s, road works by local councils and the Main Roads Commission improved connections between inland and coastal settlements. Improved road access from Brisbane and inland towns during the 1930s increased the popularity of the North Coast as a resort. During the 1930s most of the Bruce Highway to Nambour was bituminised. The construction of the bridges and road linking Tewantin and Noosa boosted the latter's prospects and the settlement was gazetted as a township in 1930.
The opening in 1929 of the Doonella Bridge at Tewantin over Lake Doonella and the Weyba Creek Bridge instigated development at Noosaville and Munna Point. Tewantin businessman Jack Parkyn, who owned the launch Miss Tewantin, diverted the boat from her previous major use as a down-river ferry to carrying tourist groups on cruises as far up the river and its lake system as Boreen Point. He purchased land at the more easterly section of Noosaville, known as Munna Point, where he developed a holiday complex. Additionally, he bought other individual allotments in the Noosaville area where he constructed holiday houses and flats. On a block of allotments in Russell Street, Munna Point, he erected a complex consisting of a row of six holiday homes, which proved to be very successful, and a general store to provide items needed by local residents and the holidaymakers who were staying in his houses. Fishing was a very popular pastime on the Noosa River and Jack Parkyn encouraged visitors holidaying in his houses to participate in this sport by providing a rowing boat with each holiday house he let an entrepreneurial action that was well received by his patrons. The advent of personal motor transport increased in interest in camping and caravanning by holidaymakers in the downstream reaches of the river. On the side of Russell Street opposite his holiday house complex in Munna Point, Jack Parkyn began clearing the existing reserve to open it for these purposes. Undergrowth was cleared to prevent the breeding of midges. With the establishment of the Munna Point venture, visitor numbers to the facility continued to increase.
With the considerable growth of car ownership during the interwar period caravans began appearing on Queensland roads. Caravans offered freedom for the affluent motor tourist, without sacrificing comfort. As a 'home away from home', fitted with modern conveniences, caravans were markedly different from the simplicity of camping under a canvas tent. Caravans were an alternative to local hotels and guesthouses, the latter being in high demand during peak seasons, and providing varying levels of quality.
Post-World War II the popularity of caravans became more noticeable as the tourist industry resumed its pre-war expansion predicated on improved roads. In 1946, the Road Ahead was noting the numbers of motor tourists from Victoria and New South Wales holidaying in Queensland. There was estimated to be 12,000 caravans on Australia roads by 1948/49. The Caravan Club of Australia was formed in 1948 and a Brisbane branch had been established by 1951, offering advice to visitors.
The RACQ fostered the popularity of caravanning in Queensland by pushing for changes to restrictive road laws and improved caravanning facilities. The 1950 Queensland Traffic Act limited cars towing caravans to 25 miles per hour, compared to 50 for cars. By 1960 this speed had been lifted to 40. From 1949 when increasing numbers of caravans were appearing on North Coast roads the RACQ was urging local authorities on tourist routes to provide 'well equipped camps 'to prepare for the boom'. In 1954, RACQ Secretary Len King drew attention to the poor state of Queensland's caravan parks, noting that the average caravanner spent £5 in the local area in which they stayed. King accompanied the Club's vice-president J.M Marshall on a tour to north Queensland, with the objective of demonstrating to local authorities and the press the lack of adequate provisions for caravanning tourists. The club published Modern Caravan Parks offering advice to local authorities and others interested in establishing caravan parks.
The growth of motor tourism during the 1950s was stimulated by the lifting of petrol rationing by the Menzies government, the increased affordability of cars for the wider population and longer paid holidays. Other factors that influenced the development of tourism on the Sunshine Coast were the popular taste for beach holidays and population growth in South-east Queensland. This in turn influenced the number of caravan users and development of caravan parks. Development of the Noosa area was boosted by the opening of the coastal road (David Low Way) in 1960 linking the main resorts at Caloundra, Maroochydore and Noosa.
Intrinsically linked to the rise of motor transport and improved roads were caravan parks. From the late 1930s, private developers were the first to offer caravan parks with modern facilities and structured layout. By 1960, a mix of public and private parks had been established on what was becoming known as the Sunshine Coast.
The site of Noosa River Caravan Park (about 2.98ha) was reserved as a Reserve for Caravan and Camping Purposes in 1956 by its excision from the 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes at Munna Point. This early reservation of the Noosa River Caravan Park as a caravan and camping reserve places it at the vanguard of the caravanning period. Queensland caravan registration figures increased substantially from 2320 in 1953 to 5406 in 1961. Caravan manufacturers and saleyards (at least 18 in Brisbane by 1960) took their place on outer suburban commercial strips. Rental and second hand vans were common.
In the early 1950s, relatively few sites in Queensland offered the necessary infrastructure to accommodate caravanning needs. Calls for improvements to sites and facilities accompanied increased caravan usage. Advocates looked to the United States and the United Kingdom for examples of best practice in caravan parks. Caravanning guides and journals offered suggestions for layout and features. These were a more formal arrangement of space than camping, characterised by grid or circular layouts and landscaped grounds.
Features common to caravan parks include location near a main road, a prominent entrance, on-site caretakers/proprietors, recreation room, levelled concrete slabs, landscaped grounds, hose connections, electricity, large amenities block with washing machines and hot showers. Many parks offered on-site vans for rental. Park listings in 1961 record 'tradespeople' calling to parks, to deliver essentials like bread and milk.
Continual updating of facilities in caravan parks has also been a common trend. Development of private and public caravan parks expanded during the 1960s. An inspection by RACQ club officials in 1962 of the state's caravan and camping grounds noted the progress through local government efforts, especially advancements by privately owned parks. Many council camping grounds became known as 'caravan parks' as site facilities became more geared to their use. Over time, investment in facilities at Council-operated caravan parks increased as tourism came to play a greater economic role in the region. In 1966 a new amenities block was finished at Munna Point and it was decided by the Noosa Shire Council to bring rates for use in line with those of Noosa Heads and Tewantin 'in view of campers using additional electrical appliances there was a necessity to review scale of charges' according to Shire Health Inspector. On the coastal strip between Noosa and Caloundra in 1968, there were 24 sites operating as caravan parks and five out of the six council camping reserves offered facilities for caravans, including power. This was a significant increase since 1960, marking the decade as a high point for caravan park development on the Sunshine Coast.
By the 1970s, caravanning was a well established and common leisure practice. A self-contained holiday in a caravan became an annual ritual for many campers, often returning to the same park year after year, members of a holiday community linked by shared experiences of place.
After private houses, caravans were the most popular form of holiday accommodation in Australia in 1976. They were significant contributors to local economies in tourist regions, through accommodation fees and flow on effects to other local businesses.
During the last 25 years development on the North Coast has been especially rapid with the population of the Sunshine Coast growing at around twice the rate of the State as a whole. The Sunshine Coast is now Queensland's third largest tourist destination in terms of holiday accommodation after the Gold Coast and Cairns. This has meant that although there is still strong demand for caravan park accommodation, there is also increased pressure for these strategically and attractively located, relatively undeveloped sites to be utilised for other accommodation types or returned to parkland. The closure of caravan parks in coastal areas began in the 1970s as more intensive commercial and residential development occurred in the region. In 2007, there are 16 caravan parks remaining on the coastal strip and no council camping reserves. At Munna Point the bulk of the 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes adjacent to the Noosa River Caravan Park was cut up for development in 1980 and this land has subsequently become the site of apartment blocks.
Noosa River Caravan Park has continued to operate as affordable riverside holiday accommodation amidst the extensive development on the Sunshine Coast. Future land use of caravan park sites, particularly on Crown land, remains a contentious topic. Local communities and visitors have come to attach special significance to caravan parks as places of leisure as has been demonstrated by their efforts to protect council-operated caravan parks on Crown land. The significance of this site as a social space and place of leisure for visitors and the local community has a long history. As a site intrinsically linked to the development of tourism in Noosa Shire since the 1920s at least, it is an important part of Queensland's cultural heritage.
","criteria":"The Noosa River Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Sunshine Coast, an important region for the development of seaside tourism in Queensland. Originally designated as part of an 80 acre reserve for public purposes in 1884, the Noosa River Caravan Park has sustained its land use as a camping/caravan park from at least the 1920s and is important evidence of the pattern of development of the tourist industry on the Sunshine Coast. The Noosa River Caravan Park illustrates the policy of colonial governments of reserving Crown land for public camping and recreation purposes in prime waterside areas, a practice which was common, but is now rare.
The Noosa River Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the evolution of tourist accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, an historically important region for the development of caravan parks in Queensland. It does this through its beginnings a riverside camping ground dating from the 1920s, then as a caravan park created at the vanguard of the boom period for caravanning and later through periodic updating of its facilities in response to contemporary demands. The site was intrinsically linked to the phenomenon of caravanning that resulted from the rise of mass motoring Australia-wide in the second half of the 20th century.
|The Noosa River Caravan Park represents a land use and custom that has made a strong contribution to the pattern and evolution of Queensland's tourism history. It is an excellent example of a camping and caravanning site that has been used by Queensland holiday-makers since the 1920s. Located adjacent to an area of quiet water allowing easy access for swimming, boating and fishing activities, Noosa River Caravan Park is important in illustrating the essential characteristics of early camping reserves.
Noosa River Caravan Park demonstrates the principal characteristics of a waterside caravan park. On a prime waterfront location with immediate access to still water, the place offers opportunities to interact with, and appreciate the natural beauty of its setting. Easily accessed by motor vehicles, and organised around a simple grid of streets and landscaping, the Park offers a range of accommodation types, which are served by a range of facilities that include ablutions blocks, barbeques and picnic areas. The range of accommodation and amenities has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its clientele, while remaining low-scale and relatively affordable for holidaymakers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30257,"place_ref":602696,"name":"Majestic Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"3 Factory Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"At the south end of Factory Street on the east side of the railway line, the Majestic Theatre stands prominently in the streetscape of the Pomona.
A long rectangular cream-painted building, with a striking red trim picking out a number of element (posts, window sills, fascias and cover strips), the theatre is sheltered by a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting crowned with a barrel-roofed ventilation ridge. The roof is concealed from the street by a three-part timber framed parapet with curved fibreboard panels. A bull nosed awning supported by bevelled timber posts with decorative Y-shaped brackets projects out from the building sheltering the footpath. The building is clad with chamferboards and stands on low concrete stumps. Metal screens run on rails along the north side of the building shading the large web lattice screen to the restaurant.
A gable roofed bio-box projects from the building over the central entrance, within the awning. Clad with fibreboard fixed with batten cover strips, the bio-box has two pairs of casement windows overlooking the street. The underside of the bio-box forms a ceiling to the entrance and is lined with fibreboard with cover strips formed into decorative diamond patterns.
Timber steps rise from the footpath to the timber floored entrance porch, the sides of which funnel in towards the pair of large timber entrance doors. The walls to the porch are clad with vertical timber boards. The early ticket booth window, now boarded up, is to the right hand side of the entrance porch.
The theatre is organised around the central auditorium, with flanking sides accommodating a restaurant and toilets to the north; and a cafe, commercial kitchen, organ room and storage to the south. The small foyer has a plain battened fibreboard ceiling sloping towards the auditorium and accommodates a recently fitted bar and ticket booth. It opens to the sides to the restaurant and cafe. A timber framed partition lined with fibreboard separates the foyer and auditorium. A dress circle sits above the foyer and is reached by a set of timber stairs to the left of the doorway from the foyer into the auditorium. The dress circle has a sloping timber floor and accommodates several rows of moveable seats. The bio-box standing to the rear of the dress circle is newly lined with plasterboard and accommodates the electronic console controlling the film projection.
The auditorium has a flat (not raked, as often found in theatres) floor of fine crow's ash boards and a coved ceiling newly lined with plasterboard with plain batten cover strips. Timber vents run around the perimeter at skirting level. A raised, timber-floored stage with a decorated proscenium arch stands at the east end of the auditorium. The proscenium arch has decorative scrolls to the overhead centre panel and painted landscape scenes to the horizontal side panels. A round framed landscape painting sits to the centre of decorative scrollwork. A white painted Compton organ console stands in the auditorium to the left of the stage. A timber fretted screen to the right side wall allows the projection of sound from the plant room of the organ housed in the room adjacent. The plant for the organ includes pipes, various sound effects mechanisms, wiring and other apparatus.
Remnants of an earlier decorative paint scheme remain to the side walls of auditorium presently covered by long red serge curtains. The scheme is notable for a decorative wallpaper dado frieze. Recent moveable metal framed and fabric upholstered chairs made by Page Furnishers of Pomona can be arranged in rows within the auditorium or stacked when not in use.
The stage opens externally to the rear by sliding doors onto a narrow timber floored dock running across the exterior the building.
The two flanking shopfronts each have large two-light clear glass windows with six small patterned lights above and a narrow timber entrance door. Valentino's Restaurant is accommodated within the north side shop space. The interior decorative scheme includes a copy of the early decorative dado motif and paint scheme found in theatre auditorium.
The roof framing is strengthened with steel sleeves to the timber trusses.
A plaque indicating the theatre is part of the Pomona heritage walk is fixed to the front of the building. A newly concreted footpath has metal stars set within it recognising those who have contributed to the ongoing success of the theatre, including Ron and Mandy West.
","history":"The Majestic Theatre at 3 Factory Street Pomona, which was originally built as a social hall with attached shops in 1921, has been promoted as the oldest authentic silent movie theatre in the world, and the longest continuously operating movie theatre in Australia. Although the building's fabric was extensively refurbished recently, the timber and fibrous cement sheeted building is still a rare, and functional, example of a pre-World War II country hall that was converted into a picture theatre.
By the 1860s timber getting was the main local industry in the Pomona area. The Co-Operative Communities Land Settlement Act 1893 led to two experimental farming communes being established in the Noosa Shire, and although the Protestant Unity Group near Pomona only lasted from 1894 to 1896, some of the group's settlers stayed on the land as individual selectors. The North Coast line from Brisbane to Gympie was completed in 1891, and the bend where local settlers hailed the train to send their goods to market was called the Cooroora railway siding, after the nearby mountain. The name was later changed to the Pinbarren siding, but when a town was surveyed in 1900, the name of Pomona, the Roman Goddess of fruit, was chosen. The Pomona Hotel was licensed in 1906, west of the railway line, and this was followed by the Railway Hotel in 1911, east of the railway line on today's Factory Street. Noosa Shire was created in 1910, and the Shire Council office was based in Pomona until 1980.
In the first decade of the 20th century, industry in the area shifted from timber to dairying and horticulture as land was cleared. Until the establishment of a butter factory at Kin Kin (1914), cream was sent by road to Cooran, and then by rail to Gympie's butter factory, established in 1898. Butter factories were also opened at Cooroy in 1915 and at Pomona in 1919. Bananas were also an important industry in the Shire after 1908, booming in the 1920s before declining in the early 1930s. Dairying remained as the main industry in the Noosa Shire from the 1930s until its decline in the 1960s. By the 1990s, Pomona was relying on fruit, and furniture manufacture for its livelihood.
Errol and Myra Osborne became licensees of the Railway Hotel in 1921, and that year they decided to build a hall to the south of the hotel to augment their facilities, and to attract commercial travellers, who needed space to display their wares. The land on which the Majestic Theatre stands was purchased in January 1921 by Myra Osborne's mother, Clara McDonald, who also financed the building of the hall. In August 1921 Errol Osborne supplied plans for the hall to the Noosa Shire Council, and in October 1921 R. McTackett requested permission to erect an awning in front of the hall he was erecting. In December 1921 Mrs McDonald requested that the Council make up a footpath in front of the newly erected Majestic Hall, offering to pay half of the cost. The Council agreed, so long as the job did not exceed ¿10.
The hall was designed to serve several functions: to show silent movies, for vaudeville productions, and to act as a social centre for the town. Over time it served as a venue for dances, balls, concerts, and wedding functions, roller skating, boxing, and church services. Constructed of unseasoned milled hardwood, the hall was about 12 metres wide by 18 metres long, with seating for 198 people. It included a sprung dance floor of ¾ inch crow's ash timber, still extant today, and was raised on stumps to avoid flooding. The roof sagged inwards within several years of construction, and this profile remained until renovations during 2006 and 2007.
On either side of the entrance to the hall were small shops. On the left hand side was the Majestic Café, which also served as general store before being used for storage from the 1930s, and the right hand side's shop accommodated at various times a dentist, radio shop, and a mechanic. In the mid 1920s a supper room was added to the long southeast elevation of the hall, and this section was later extended to the northeast.
Travelling Picture Show Men initially called at the Majestic Hall to show silent movies, but in 1923 the hall was leased by Mrs Osborne to Harold 'Picture' Page, who obtained a theatre license that year. Herbert Page (unrelated), of Page Furnishers, was called 'Blue Shirt' Page, to distinguish him from Picture Page. Reportedly, the early silent films in Pomona were accompanied by a schoolgirl playing random music on a pianola. On 28 April 1931 the first talkie, or movie recorded with its own soundtrack, was shown at the hall, and around 1933 the hall's lease was transferred to Ernie Bazzo, who upgraded the hall to a theatre by adding a small gallery and a bio box. A number of local social functions were shifted to the new Pomona Memorial Hall during this decade. In the late 1930s Bazzo used seating from the Princess Theatre in South Brisbane to replace the existing canvas sling seating.
The Pomona Talkie Company was registered on 1 October 1935, and involved Errol Osborne, Ernest Bazzo, and Charles S. Thomson. Bazzo also owned the nearby Central Garage, and worked as a mechanic during the day, operating the theatre at night. The Majestic Theatre, Pomona is first listed under Theatres and Picture Shows in the Queensland Post Office Directory, (Trades), in 1940, and the land on which the theatre stands was transferred to Bazzo in October 1948.
The development of the Majestic Theatre in Pomona reflected wider trends in Queensland's society. Moving pictures became a popular form of entertainment in Queensland soon after the first films were exhibited in Brisbane in the late 1890s. Hotels were often associated with early picture shows, especially in rural areas, where films might be shown in an adjacent hall or garden. Initially, travelling picture shows in rural areas were screened in halls, with the Picture Show Men travelling regular circuits, but later dedicated theatres were built in small towns, with a local resident - sometimes the local motor garage proprietor - working the projector.
Many theatres were built with attached retail spaces, including a café or milk bar for patrons, and a cantilevered street awning. As an alternative to purpose-built theatres, halls were regularly converted into picture theatres by erecting bio-boxes, installing a gallery, or adding new seating and sound equipment. Halls usually contained a supper room along the length of one side, for light meals during balls and other social functions.
From the 1910s until the advent of television rural theatres provided an important social service to people in the surrounding area, including stimulus for the imagination, relief from isolation, and a link with the wider community in Australia and with United States' popular culture. Local picture theatres were also used as social venues for school concerts and dances, and many had level, sprung dance floors. Most small theatres were independently owned, with Queensland having more independent theatres than any other state in Australia. In the 1930s there were about 200 theatres in QLD, and 75% of these were located outside Brisbane. However, post-war social, economic and technological trends would eventually spell the end for most small rural picture theatres. Almost half of the theatres exhibiting in 1960 and 1961 (388 in Queensland) had closed by 1971.
The Majestic Theatre was operated by Ernie Bazzo until he suffered a stroke in 1973. Its busiest period was during World War II, when a Tank Attack (anti-tank gun) Regiment was stationed near Pomona. The troops had priority for seats, and local civilians were irate when they could not get in. Often, people would watch from outside, standing in the middle of the road, which was then the original Bruce Highway. The theatre remained popular after the war, and throughout the 1940s to the 1960s films were shown on Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon, with a cartoon and two movies for four shillings and sixpence. In 1956 the original projector equipment was replaced with equipment from the Tivoli Theatre in Brisbane. At the interval between movies, patrons adjourned to the Kia Ora Café next door for pies. This building, later known as the Majestic Café, was located north of the theatre, and burnt down c.2002.
In 1973 Ron and Mandy West introduced the Travelling Film Festival, which featured first-release and avant garde films, to the Majestic Theatre, and the festival screened at Pomona until 1994. The Wests purchased the theatre in 1974, although title to the land on which it stands was not transferred until January 1979. The Majestic remained the Noosa Shire's only picture theatre until 1984. The film projection equipment was replaced in 1980, and a DVD system was installed in 2003.
Ron West was raised in New Zealand, where he worked in picture theatres as an ice cream boy and a projectionist, and he also worked in theatre stage management, and as a musician or conductor in orchestra music pits. During 13 years as a sound engineer for the Commonwealth Film Unit in Sydney, he ventured into film production and photography. Ron's late wife Mandy shared his interest in the theatre, and during the 1980s she directed an amateur theatrical group, The Majestic Players, in pantomimes and plays on stage at the Majestic, the stage having been enlarged in 1979. Classical concerts were also held on Sunday afternoons by visiting musicians. Around April 1985 Judith Durham (of The Seekers) and her husband Ronald Edgeworth gave concerts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for five weekends. In the early 1990s school plays were performed at the Majestic.
During the 1980s the theatre also operated as a video hire outlet to help keep it viable. In 1987 West was asked to show a silent movie to a group of travel agents, and since he possessed a print of the 1926 film The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolf Valentino, he ran the film and accompanied it with his restored Wurlitzer pipe organ, making up the music as he went along. Word got around, and after several months the Wests decided to only show silent movies at the Majestic, which gained world-wide recognition as a silent movie house. Six days a week, the Majestic was open to school visits and coach loads of Australian and international tourists. The most popular silent films shown since 1987 include The Son of the Sheik, the original Raymond Longford production of Dad and Dave in On our Selection, and Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Cooper in The Kid. In 2004 West received the premier Noosa Shire Australia Day Award for his services to culture and the community.
West has an interest in pipe organs, and he has used them to accompany the silent films at the Majestic. The current organ console, the only one in a Queensland theatre, is located to the left of the stage and is an electrical 1936 Compton from the Regal Cinema in South Shields, England. It was rebuilt during 2006 and 2007 by West and John Brooks. The pipe chamber, which also contains a bank of 1930s electrical organ switches from the Theatre Royal in Halifax, is located within the former supper room extension on the south east side of the theatre. Three ranks of Christie pipes in the chamber were originally from a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand, and were owned by a church in Sydney before they were acquired by West in 1985. Other ranks of pipes have been obtained, with the hope of eventually having 12 ranks.
West did not just collect pipe organ parts - the timber organ grill that separates the organ room from the auditorium is made of Oregon pine, and comes from the Roxy Theatre in Parramatta. In the past West has also salvaged stage drapes, furnishings and equipment from the Regent, Wintergarden, Her Majesty's theatres in Brisbane, and the Wintergarden in Ipswich. The former office of the Pomona Butter Factory (since incorporated into the Page Furnishers' factory complex) was given to the Wests and now stands behind the theatre.
In late 2006 the land on which the theatre stands was transferred to Pomona Progress Art Tourism Inc, a community group which intends to run the Majestic Theatre as an all-purpose entertainment venue. Ron West stayed on to manage the theatre and to play the organ during silent movies. In September 2006 the first team of SkillCentred Community Jobs Project workers (whose wages were paid by the Queensland Government), began an upgrade of the theatre, which reopened in mid 2007. Grants were also provided by the Noosa Shire Council and the Federal Government.
Upgrades included restumping the building with steel, replacing the roofing iron and correcting the roof's sag with steel reinforcement, bracing walls, refixing much of the exterior cladding, and replacing interior linings and the ceiling. Asbestos boards used in the building were replaced with modern materials. The fixed seating was removed and was replaced with moveable seating built by Page Furnishers, and the organ chamber was rebuilt and extended. The roof of the stage was raised to match the roof of the auditorium, the floor of the dressing room was raised to stage level, and new sliding doors were installed at the rear of the building. The former Majestic Café was refurbished for use as Valentino's Restaurant, while the former shop space to the right of the main entrance was refurbished as a modern kitchen. The sprung dance floor was sanded back and oiled, the toilet area was modernised, and a snack and beverages bar was installed in the foyer. New paths and ramps have been added around the building's exterior.
","criteria":"The Majestic theatre is rare as one of the few pre-World War II picture theatres remaining in Queensland that have not been demolished or adapted to other uses. It is also Queensland's longest continuously operating picture theatre.
|Although the Majestic Theatre was recently refurbished, its floor plan and design still illustrates the characteristics of a small rural picture theatre that has been adapted from a local hall. These characteristics include the hall's original retail spaces and the supper room section on the southeast elevation. The installation of a bio-box and gallery was also a typical means of converting a hall into a picture theatre.
|Over the last 20 years the Majestic Theatre has developed a following of silent film enthusiasts, and its popularity ensured that the theatre's refurbishment during 2006-2007 received financial support from private individuals and businesses as well as from the Local, State, and Federal governments.
|The Majestic Theatre in Pomona, a venue that has shown films continuously since 1921, is important in demonstrating the development of picture theatres in Queensland and the part that picture-going played in the life of rural Queenslanders from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Majestic Theatre, constructed as the Majestic Hall and modified in the 1930s to show "talkies", also demonstrates the evolution of film exhibition venues in Queensland, whereby community halls were often used to show pictures, prior to converting the hall into a picture theatre, or constructing a purpose-built cinema. In addition, it demonstrates the practice of independent film exhibition by owner-operators in rural Queensland towns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"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 | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} ]}