The pool complex is in a parkland setting to the rear of Dalby War Memorial and Gates [600441] and adjacent to Myall Creek. It is part of a large recreational precinct which includes a bowls club and croquet club.
The open-air pool complex is approached from Patrick Street by twin paths that divide behind the war memorial, to which the pool pavilion forms a backdrop. A formal arrangement of garden beds and flagpoles fills this space.
The symmetrically placed entry pavilion is a single storey rectangular building spanning the width of the pool complex. It has a hipped roof with gables at each end of the front and a central gabled porch leading to turnstiles and the pool area. This area contains granite panels commemorating the opening of the pool complex. The building is clad with weatherboards on the lower section with panels of fibrous cement sheeting above. It is lit by six pane casement windows. The south-east part of the building contains a service area and kiosk and club meeting rooms are located in the north-west end of the building.
The rear of the building also has a central gabled porch and a timber pergola over a paved area that separates the building from the pool
Positioned between the entry pavilion and the main pool, and at right-angles to the latter, is a children's pool measuring 15.2 metres by 8.4 metres. It has recent additions of fibreglass rocks and play features. The main pool measures 50 metres by 15.2 metres. Concrete concourses and lawns surround the pool and a spectators' stand is positioned along one side, with changing rooms beneath. There is a brick plant room at the far end of the pool.
Also located within the pool complex grounds is a pool caretaker's residence. This is a small, high-set, timber cottage with an enclosed front verandah.
The Arthur G Obst Stand is not the original structure and is not considered significant.
","history":"The Dalby Swimming pool complex was constructed in 1936 and is the earliest identified Olympic standard pool in Queensland constructed outside Brisbane.
Dalby was one of the earliest European settlements on the Darling Downs. The township was surveyed in 1853, the first land sales took place in 1857, and the town was proclaimed a municipality in 1863.
Dalby has a long association with swimming as a sport. Initially, a swimming hole in Myall Creek was used, but in 1902 an artesian bore was sunk on the bank and baths were built nearby to take advantage of the bore water. The Dalby Amateur Swimming Club was formed in 1912. In 1920 a new bore was sunk and in 1924 a public baths [the Dalby Bore Baths] was constructed close to it. This facility closed in September 1938, possibly because the new Olympic Pool had supplanted it.
From the 1910s, swimming as both a competitive and recreational sport gained rapidly in popularity in Queensland, and indeed, world-wide. In 1908 the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed with the goals of standardising the rules for swimming, diving and water polo, obtaining control of world records, and ensuring the direction of Olympic Games competitions for swimming, diving and water polo.
Swimming was given further impetus by the 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris. An 8-lane pool measuring 50 metres in length by 20 metres in width was specially constructed at Tourelles for swimming events, setting the Olympic standards. Swimmers hoping to compete internationally now needed a pool of this size in order to practice effectively. The precise requirements to meet Olympic pool standards have since been refined and cover width, depth, and temperature and light densities.
In Brisbane, the Fortitude Valley Baths were rebuilt in 1925-1926 to the Olympic standard, being 50 metres in length and 22 metres wide. [This structure no longer survives.]
By the 1930s swimming was a glamorous sport internationally, with sport and medal winners such as Duke Kahanamoku, Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe becoming Hollywood celebrities. In Sydney, four Olympic-standard pools were constructed in the 1930s, municipal councils taking advantage of loans and other financial incentives offered by a government keen to create work by encouraging civic building projects. The pool buildings and surrounds of the new Olympic pools were architect designed. A notable survivor is the North Sydney Olympic Pool Complex opened on 4 April 1936.
Design problems with the new large pools included the provision of adequate water filtration and the prevention of algae. The firm of AH Pierce & Co., still associated with commercial pools, imported calcium hypochlorite from England and pool builders took a keen interest in others' pool designs. Pool facilities usually comprised an Olympic-standard pool for recreation and competitions, a smaller pool for children, diving tower, spectators' stand, men's and women's changing rooms and club meeting rooms.
By the early 1930s Dalby was experiencing renewed growth and prosperity, reflecting extensive land reclamation in the surrounding district in the wake of the eradication of the prickly pear cactus. This noxious weed had wasted thousands of hectares of agricultural and grazing land in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Annual Report of the Department of Public Lands identified Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles as the towns experiencing the most progress. Under the Intermittent Relief Scheme established during the Depression, the Department of Works remodelled and added to the Dalby State School. The Dalby Court House and Police Station were also built in the first half of the 1930s.
In 1933 Dalby Town Council formed an Olympic pool committee. The idea for a pool and tennis courts in Dalby had been suggested in correspondence to the Council by the Dalby Chamber of Commerce in 1931. The Dalby Town Council appointed William J Reinhold as the consulting engineer and Clifford E Plant as the architect. Plant is noted for the Kings Beach Bathing Pavilion [QHR 601513] and the Redcliffe Bathing Pavilions Group, designed and constructed in the 1930s.
Excavation work commenced on 1 July 1936 and the first patrons were admitted late in October of that year. The complex was completed at a cost of £11,500 and was officially opened on 14 November 1936 by Frank Cooper, MLA, Minister for Public Instruction, before a crowd of approximately 2,000 people. Commending the Dalby Town Council on its initiative, Cooper commented that there was no town twice or even 10 times the size of Dalby that had a swimming pool like theirs.
At the time, the pool was the most modern in Queensland, using the latest filtration and chlorinating equipment to treat the artesian water used to fill the pools. In March 1938 the Lord Mayor of Brisbane visited Dalby with the Chairman of the Brisbane Parks and Baths committee in order to inspect it before planning similar pools for Brisbane, though it was some years before such plans were implemented.
The opening of the Dalby pool gave an impetus to regional swimming and a number of swimming clubs were formed including the Dalby and District Swimming and Life-Saving Club, and the association of the pool with community sports clubs continues. The first major swimming carnival was held in February 1937. During the Second World War, aircrew from No. 12 Squadron stationed nearby received their forced landing at sea training in the Dalby pool.
The 1956 Melbourne Olympics led to an increased interest in competition swimming and most surviving early Olympic pools in Australia date from the preparation for, or interest stemming from, these games. Between 1949 and 1960, Dalby district swimmers gained approximately 100 places in Queensland swimming and diving championships. The pool was visited and used by a number of famous Australian swimmers including Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose and members of the Konrad family. During 1957-8 the Dalby pool recorded an annual attendance of 143,167.
The original timber spectator stand for the pool was replaced by a concrete stand in 1971 and named for a former pool manager and coach, Arthur G Obst.
In 1983, the pool area underwent renovation. This work included the replacement of the circulation pipe work, the plant room and water treatment plant, the concrete concourses around the pool and the substitution of skimmer boxes for scum gutters. More recently, the pools have been lined with fibreglass and fibreglass features have been added to the children's pool.
The Dalby Pool Complex remains the venue for large swimming carnivals, one of which, the Dalby Open, attracted 1734 nominations in 2002.
","criteria":"The Dalby Swimming Pool complex, constructed and opened in 1936, is important in demonstrating the development of competition swimming in Queensland. As an Olympic standard pool built in the 1930s, it illustrates the surge of public interest both in competitive and recreational swimming during the interwar period.
As a facility which demonstrated how artesian water might be used to the advantage of a community, the Dalby Swimming Pool also is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history.
It is also important in illustrating the 1930s expansion of civic work in the former prickly pear belt, following the eradication of this pest in the late 1920s and early 1930s. As land cleared of prickly pear cactus was utilised for agriculture, grazing and dairying, towns throughout the prickly pear belt, especially Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles, experienced renewed growth and prosperity.
|The Dalby Swimming Pool Complex has a strong association with the community of Dalby and the surrounding area as an important sports venue for swimming events, enabling Dalby swimmers access to wider Australian competition, and has at times attracted Australian/international swimming stars.
|The Dalby Swimming Pool complex is rare as the earliest identified surviving Olympic-sized swimming pool complex in Queensland. It is the earliest known Olympic Pool complex constructed in Queensland outside Brisbane, and retains its two pools (competition and children's), entrance pavilion, and caretaker's residence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3367,"place_ref":602399,"name":"St John's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St John's Church of England | St Johns Anglican Church | St Johns Church | St John's Church","street_address":"153 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Geographically, the building is aligned on a northwest-southeast axis but this description treats this axis as the west-east liturgical axis, e.g. the northwest elevation is regarded as the west for liturgical purposes.
St John's Church stands prominently to the corner of Cunningham and Drayton Streets, Dalby and is set within extensive grounds. An elegant composition in the Gothic revival idiom, the building is sheltered by a steeply pitched roof clad with fibrous cement shingles and the buttresses and external walls are of brown facebrick embellished with white cement copings and mouldings.
Cruciform in plan, the transept accommodates a clergy vestry and a choir vestry and the west end a baptistery flanked by entrance porches. The nave is lit by lancet windows five of stained glass and one of coloured glass to the north and two of stained glass and two of coloured glass to the south. Both vestries are lit by lancet windows of coloured glass. Circular lights are over the external entrances to the vestries and oval lights decorate the internal doorways from these spaces the light over the south entrance now without its coloured glass. Internally, these windows are embellished with plain hood moulds. The east end accommodates the Mulholland memorial window, a fine stained glass window comprising three vertical arched panels crowned with three diamond-shaped lights depicting the Transfiguration. The Geizel memorial window, depicting St Cecilia, lights the baptistery.
The nave walls are plastered down to dado height beneath which is red face brick. The ceiling is lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting with a narrow decorative panel running along the underside of the ridge. Large curved timber brackets spring from oversized corbels to support the roof beams.
The altar, with decorative timber panelling to the sides, stands on a raised platform within the chancel which is lined to dado height with decorative cedar panelling. The church accommodates fine furniture including cedar pews and pulpit from the 1876 church, chairs, kneelers and lecterns. Other liturgical items include a silver communion plate, candlesticks, sanctuary lamp and processional cross.
A wing accommodating more seating opens to the south from the sanctuary. This is part of the Frank Knight Memorial Hall, a rectangular brick extension to the south of the church. This extension is not of cultural heritage significance.
The shrubs, trees, rectory, parish office and bell tower within the church grounds are not of cultural heritage significance. The property is bounded to Drayton and Cunningham streets by a low brick fence with decorative metal entrance gates. These elements are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St John's Church, Dalby is a brick church constructed in 1922-1923 to the design of Harry Marks and is the third church of this name on the site. The previous timber church, built in 1876, remained on the site in a modified form as part of a former parish hall, until it was demolished in February 2003.
The site of St John's Church is part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship established during the first years of European settlement on the Darling Downs, which began in 1840. At this time the Downs were part of New South Wales and fell within the Diocese of Newcastle. The Reverend John Gregor visited the area, holding services in camps and private homes from 1840 until his death in 1848. The energetic Reverend Benjamin Glennie succeeded him and his first service on the Downs was held in the parlour of the Bull's Head Inn at Drayton in 1848, there being no church. On 25 May 1851, Glennie held the first service in the Dalby area in the home of Hugh Ross. From then on, regular services were held in such diverse venues as private homes, a woolshed and the courthouse. Glennie was responsible for the Anglican pastoral care of the Darling Downs from 1850 to 1860. He laid the foundations of a parochial system on the Downs by establishing congregations, buying strategic sites and building churches.
Glennie approached his Bishop for permission to buy land for a church in Toowoomba and in February 1853 gained permission to collect subscriptions for buildings in other towns on his tours throughout his parish, state aid for the construction of church buildings having ceased in 1852. He envisioned four churches, each dedicated to one of the evangelists, in the four major towns of the Downs. This vision was eventually fulfilled by St Luke's at Toowoomba (1856), St Mark's at Warwick (1857), St Matthew's at Drayton (1859) and St John's at Dalby (1866).
The town of Dalby developed on the site of a crossing over Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River. Here Henry Dennis, seeking grazing land for his employer, Charles Coxon, camped in 1841 soon after the first land was taken up on the Darling Downs. A small settlement grew up around 'the Crossing' and became a recognised township in 1854. In 1863 Dalby was proclaimed a municipality and developed as the main centre of the northern Downs. The railway reached Dalby in 1868 and it grew in importance as the railhead for the surrounding pastoral and agricultural industries.
In June 1858, Glennie wrote to his Bishop asking him to secure a piece of land at Dalby for a church. In 1859, the government granted a two-acre block of land at the corner of Cunningham and Drayton streets for a church, school and parsonage. In 1860 the first parish priest, Reverend Edmund Moberley, was appointed and in 1863 a parsonage was built in Patrick Street where 27 acres [11 hectares] of Glebe land were also held. In 1866 a small brick church with an iron roof was built on the corner of Cunningham and Drayton Streets to the design of WC Wakeling. Due to insufficient funds, it was built to only half the size originally intended and in 1874 developed cracks due to movement of the foundations, which proved inadequate for the soil conditions. It soon became unsafe and it was decided to replace it with a timber church rather than undertake repairs.
The next church was designed by architect Willoughby Powell, opened on 5 November 1876 by Bishop Hale and consecrated in 1878. The church, a rectangular timber building sheltered by a shingled roof and set on stumps, faced Cunningham Street.
In the early 1920s, during a period of economic expansion in Queensland, the congregation decided to replace this church with a brick building and the foundation stone for the third church on this site was laid in August 1922. The 1876 church was moved and extensively modified to serve as a parish hall and Sunday school. Furniture, fittings, stained glass and ornaments were transferred to the new church. Stained glass windows taken from the 1876 church and installed in the 1922 church include one now in the baptistery depicting St Cecilia (donated in 1901 in memory of Mrs Geizel) and the Mulholland Memorial window, a representation of the Transfiguration, now at the east end of the church. Both were to the design of EA Milford, a prominent Sydney churchman.
The new church was designed by architect HJ (Harry) Marks. He was one of a remarkable family firm of architects that had a lasting effect on the appearance of Toowoomba, being responsible for a large number of public, private and commercial buildings. James Marks arrived in Queensland in 1866 and first set up in practice in Dalby, moving to Toowoomba in 1874. He entered into partnership as James Marks and Son with his eldest son Harry, who joined his father's practice in 1903, and Reginald who joined in 1910. Charles Marks, James' grandson, also worked as an architect in Toowoomba. Harry Marks was particularly interested in providing good ventilation and natural lighting and these are features of buildings designed by him.
In order to prevent a recurrence of the foundation problems that ruined the first church, the Dalby site was excavated to a depth of 8 feet when a bed of solid yellow clay was discovered. The foundations were put in with reinforced concrete built on arches. The building contract was let to J and F Muller of Toowoomba at an estimated cost of £4123. Memorial windows (Geizel and Mulholland windows), pulpit, altar and lectern and much of the furniture were transferred from the old building to the new one. The building of the church was funded from a building fund formed by gifts of money and land by Mr Osborne, to whose memory a stained glass window is installed in the sanctuary. Other gifts included a silver communion plate (Mr and Mrs Drury), candlesticks (Cecil Plains parish) and a sanctuary lamp (Mr and Mrs Fortescue - in memory of their son, killed in the Great War). The foundation stone was laid in August 1922 by the Governor-General, Baron Forster of Lepe, and Archbishop Sharpe dedicated the new church on 19 August 1923. Decorative red cedar panelling donated by Mr CG Knowles was installed to dado height in the sanctuary and chancel by 1931. The church was consecrated on 11 August 1935.
The Frank Knight Memorial Hall is a brick extension constructed in the 1960s to provide more seating for congregations and a parish hall. The northwest end of the hall accommodates a rectangular room with seating. Part of the south wall of the church, from the vestry to the east wall, was removed to connect this wing directly with the church.
Recent work to the church includes the installation of six split-system air conditioning units in January 2005 and the installation of four new stained glass windows in April 2008.
","criteria":"The site of St John's Anglican Church is important for its association with the early development of Dalby and of the Anglican Church in Queensland, being associated with a group of four early Anglican parishes established on the Darling Downs during the 1850s and 1860s and dedicated to the evangelists - St Matthew, Drayton [600837], St Mark, Warwick [600943], St Luke, Toowoomba [601878] and St John, Dalby. Important as part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship on the Darling Downs, St John's Church (1922-1923) is the third church building for the parish of St John on this site.
|Sited prominently in an open grassed setting on a corner in the heart of Dalby, the elegant, well-composed St John's Church, with its steeply pitched roof, fine brickwork and decorative embellishments, is a striking presence in the streetscape of Dalby. With fine stained glass windows, well-crafted furniture, decorative timber panelling and handsome timber roof brackets, the interior of the church provides a contemplative setting for religious observances.
|St John's Church is a fine example of a church in the Gothic revival idiom comprising a number of elements typical of this style including a steeply pitched roof, pointed arches, external buttressing to walls, decorative mouldings, lancet windows and fine stained glass.
A number of fixtures and fittings gifted to the church from parishioners reflect the importance of the church to the parish including memorial stained glass windows, church furniture and liturgical items.
Designed by leading Toowoomba architect Harry Marks, one of a family of prominent Queensland architects, St John's Church is a fine example of his ecclesiastical work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3464,"place_ref":602754,"name":"Dalby Fire Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"21 New Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-10-08","description":"The Dalby Fire Station is located in the southern corner of a large land parcel addressing New Street about halfway between Cunningham Street to the south-east and the Highway to the north-west. Starlings Lane runs along the rear of the block.
The fire station building comprises a core (1935) constructed on reinforced concrete foundations with an upper structure combining elements of steel, reinforced concrete framing and brickwork. It has a gable roof behind a parapet on two sides. It has brick two-storey additions along its north-western side (1953) and its rear (1976), both of which have skillion roofs. A steel garage with skillion roof has been installed along its north-westernmost side and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The core's façade addressing New Street is symmetrical and employs painted cement-render in making its various classical motifs. It features twin garage doors on the ground floor flanked by rendered pilasters. On the first floor these pilasters flank a 1.8 metre wide balcony, the long opening to which is decorated by four tapered ionic columns and a wrought iron balustrade. The name of the building is displayed in raised lettering across the entablature and the date of construction, 1935, is featured in the parapet above. The exposed stretcher bond brickwork to the balcony is tuck pointed, while above the two French windows and single glazed door are soldier courses of glazed brick. Its floor is unpainted concrete. The central single-leaf door has twelve lights, while those either side of it have eight lights in each leaf. All these feature textured and semi-transparent glass, while the rectangular fanlights are clear glass.
The 1935 core is constructed with solid brick walls on the ground floor and cavity brick walls on the upper level, reflected in the varying brickwork bonds employed on the south-eastern side façade still visible: English bond below with headers picked out by dark colouring and stretcher bond above. Also on this façade a continuous concrete lintel separates the levels. The latter additions are completed in stretcher bond and also use continuous lintels.
The gable roof of the 1935 structure is clad in metal sheeting, falling to a parapet wall along the south-eastern side and to a central gutter on its north-western side, which also serves the skillion roof of the 1953 extension. The north-western side of this extension has a parapet. The original chimney pierces the gable roof of the 1935 core. Only one original six-light, double-hung timber window remains, internalised by the extent of the 1953 extension, while all others are double-hung aluminium. The lintels to these windows are largely rendered and painted. Access to the building is via a side door on the south-eastern facade or via a rear door facing Starlings Lane and the north east.
Inside the 1935 core a large area at the front houses two fire appliances with hooks, racks and shelves either side for equipment. To the rear of this space are a communications and operations office and a stairway leading from the north-eastern corner to the upper level. The stair has its original timber balustrade and has been enclosed underneath for storage. The office walls are lined with laminated board panelling, revealing only the outline of the original fireplace and chimney. Ceilings are 4.26 metres high and feature original timber cover strips over fibro sheeting, with decorative cornices and suspended fluorescent lighting. The 1976 rear extension houses a small office and ablution facilities on the ground floor, while the 1953 extension accommodates further space for a fire appliance and a workshop at the rear. In the garages the floors are painted concrete. A roll-a-door at the rear of the 1953 garage provides access to the rear of the allotment. An undercover parking space is provided immediately outside this door, under the 1976 first floor.
On the upper floor of the 1935 extension at the rear are a kitchen, living area, bathroom and toilet. At its front over the garage space are two bedrooms, one of which has been enlarged to include the corridor space that led to the balcony on New Street. The upper level of the 1953 extension contains bedroom and training spaces, while that from 1976 contains bedrooms and a balcony.
Other than the internal stair, access is gained to this upper floor balcony via an external steel staircase. The floor levels differ between the later extensions and the 1935 building core, the former being lower.
The fireplace in the upper level living room retains its original Wunderlich glazed brick and rendered concrete surround. The kitchen, bathroom and toilet fittings are not original. The front two bedrooms have built-in wardrobes, while the former third bedroom is used as a storeroom. All internal walls and ceilings are clad in fibrous cement sheeting. Ceilings throughout the upper level are 3.2 metres high. The areas on the first floor of the 1953 addition are accessed via doors cut out of the original window openings in the north-western wall of the 1935 building. The opening between the lounge and the training room has been widened to accommodate two six-light French doors with opaque textured glass.
Vehicular access is either via New Street along the north-eastern side of the fire station or through double gates on Starlings Lane.
","history":"The Dalby Fire Station is located in the town of Dalby, about 80 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba in south-east Queensland. A two-storey, predominantly brick structure, the core of the station was built in 1935 to a design by Toowoomba architect Matthew Williamson. Located on the northern edge of the town's business centre the building addresses New Street and is equidistant from Cunningham Street, the main street, and the Bunya Highway or Condamine Street as it runs through the town. It and its associated structures occupy a 2023 square metre allotment backing onto Starlings Lane. Cunningham Street features a number of significant commercial buildings including the Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (QHR 601018), the former police station and courthouse complex and St John's Anglican Church (QHR 602399). The 1935 brick fire station replaced a 1920 timber structure and was extended in 1953 to provide an extra garage and workshop on the ground floor and an upstairs recreation area. Further extensions along the rear of the building were undertaken in 1976.
The town of Dalby was laid out by Surveyor EO Moriaty in 1852; part of the expansion of pastoral activities on the Darling Downs. Due to problems with flood levels, a second town survey was completed the following year and the Town Reserve declared in 1855. It was gazetted as a municipality on 29 August 1863. The extension of the Toowoomba railway to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom that only deflated when the line was extended west in 1877. Further prosperity occurred as a result of the Agricultural Land Purchase Act 1894, which opened up substantial tracts of land previously held by the early pastoralists. This led to closer settlement around Dalby and its development into a major regional centre.
The first Dalby Fire Brigade was formed in 1882, but was short-lived because of the failure of local insurance companies to contribute to its financial support. The second Dalby Fire Brigade was initiated under the Fire Brigade Amendment Act 1902 at a meeting in March 1915, and its board was gazetted on 24 July. By October 1916, the fledgling brigade had received its first government subsidy and a manual fire engine was purchased the following year. Land for the fire brigade was acquired in New Street (Allot 3 Section 6) in January 1920. It had been originally taken up in 1863 by John Donovan and transferred to local butcher James Ryan in 1885. It is conjectured that the cottage now utilised as the fire station office was built in 1889 when Ryan took out a mortgage on his property. The land was transferred to Ryan's daughter Margaret in 1910, and in 1919, about six years after she had married and moved to Sydney, she placed the property in the hands of trustees Dalby Mayor James Duncan Morris and Alderman Walter Robertson Hunter, both fire brigade board members. The agreement allowed for the board to build on the site and take out mortgages to finance any improvements. Tenders were called for construction of this first fire station in January 1920 and building proceeded at a cost of £95. A simple timber garage with a galvanised iron gable roof was erected. Local builders Draney and Co were contracted to enlarge this building in 1923 to provide a board room, which eventually housed the new fire truck purchased six years later.
During the early 1930s the Dalby region experienced renewed growth following the eradication of the prickly pear pest with the introduction of the Cactoblastis Cactorum moth in 1925. The prickly pear had devastated the region from the late 19th century and its destruction led to the recovery of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and the Department of Public Lands reporting rapid expansion of agriculture, grazing and dairying around Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles.
After the election of the Forgan-Smith state government in June 1932, part of its funds were channelled into what were considered 'sound' public projects providing long-term community benefit, rather than into short-term maintenance projects such as those funded through the Intermittent Relief Scheme. Projects funded directly by the Queensland Department of Public Works included additions to the Dalby School (1935), and a new courthouse and police station (1934). The town's stock of commercial and ecclesiastical buildings was also augmented at this time with: a Bank of New South Wales and National Bank (both no longer extant), the Dalby Swimming Pool Complex (QHR 602564), the Dalby Council Offices and School of Arts (QHR 601018), a Presbyterian Church, the Star Theatre (no longer extant) and a Catholic Presbytery (no longer extant).
The Fire Brigade Act of 1931 had allowed for boards to make by-laws and those devised by the Dalby Fire Brigade Board were gazetted in August 1934, providing administrative guidelines for the board and firemen. At the board meeting of June 1934, the secretary Mr HE Thorley presented preliminary plans for a two-storey brick fire station, the estimated cost for which being between £2,500 and £2,800. In August 1934 Toowoomba architect Matthew Williamson produced the final plans for the fire station. Williamson's other Dalby projects included the Presbyterian Church (1933), the Star Theatre (1936, no longer extant) and a number of shops and private dwellings. He was also responsible for numerous projects in Toowoomba, including the Trades Hall (1934) in Russell Street, as well as buildings in Miles, Crows Nest and Oakey.
In November 1934, it was reported that a loan had been secured from the Commonwealth Bank, when the tender of £2,482 /8/- submitted by local builder G Ficken was accepted. Before construction was completed, the Forgan-Smith government approved for local authorities and other local bodies - such as hospital, harbour and fire brigade boards - a reduction of 1% in the interest rates of all loans with rates over 4%. This presumably aided the construction of other fire stations and community infrastructure across the state during the 1930s.
The Dalby Fire Station was formally opened on 16 November 1935 by the Home Secretary Mr EM (Ned) Hanlon. It was 51 feet 8 inches (15.6 metres) long and 32 feet 4 inches (9.8 metres) wide and built on concrete foundations and footings with concrete floors on a base of broken stone to the appliance rooms and timber flooring elsewhere on the ground floor. The structure comprised some rolled steel and reinforced concrete components, including continuous wall lintels. The ground floor accommodated two fire appliances behind folding timber doors with a recreation room and open timber stairway at the rear. On the interior of this level there was silky oak interior wall panelling to a height of 6 feet 6 inches (2 metres). The upper level had a kitchen, living room, lounge room, three bedrooms, a bathroom and balcony to the street. Fibro sheeting and plaster variously lined the walls of the upper level, with ornamental cornices. The fireplaces on both levels were detailed with Wunderlich bricks and all windows were timber. The external brick walls were solid on the ground floor and included a cavity above the wall lintel. There were glazed brick soldier courses to openings on the first floor and glazed brick sills to the front of the building. The original paintwork to the concrete walls was to be lime wash tinted with burnt sienna, while the lettering on the front was to be finished with gold leaf.
Prior to the completion of the Dalby Fire Station in 1935 only four other two-storey, brick fire stations had been built in the state's capital, Brisbane. The sole survivor of these is the 1927 Albion Fire Station (QHR 602246), which along with a station at South Brisbane was apart of the network rationalisations undertaken after 1921 by the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board. During the interwar years a number of two-storey fire stations were also built in Brisbane of timber and fibro, including: an upgrade to the Ithaca Fire Station in 1928 (QHR 601199); a new station at Yeronga in 1934 (QHR 602144); and three at Coorparoo (QHR 600569), Nundah (QHR 602119) and Wynnum (QHR 602143) built in 1935, 1936 and 1938 to the same plan. Generally the layout of all these structures provided accommodation for fire appliances on the ground floor, and a recreation room, kitchen, bathroom and dormitory space, and accommodation for officers and their families on the first floor. The 1935 Dalby station was smaller than some of the Brisbane stations, with space for two fire appliances and a recreation room on the ground floor and living quarters for the chief officer and his family on the upper floor. Accommodation for firemen was provided in a three bedroom cottage on the site built using materials from the 1920 to 1929 fire station garage.
By 1949 it was evident that a larger station was required at Dalby to house a new fire engine, and that more bedrooms were needed in the firemen's quarters. Funding was acquired in stages over the next few years from both government and private sources. The extension was built in brick along the north-western side of the fire station during 1953. It included a third engine bay and workshop on the ground floor and a recreation area on the first floor. The new addition was 60 by 16 feet (15.7 by 4.7 metres). Additions were also made to the timber firemen's quarters. At this time the adjacent timber low-set cottage was occupied by the mechanic/caretaker.
The property owner Margaret Sara (nee Ryan) died in Broken Hill in 1953 and the property was transferred to the Dalby Fire Brigade Board on 11 May of the following year.
In an effort to better co-ordinate the management of fire brigades across Queensland, the Queensland Fire Brigades Boards Association was formed in 1962-63. The Fire Brigade Act 1964 legislated for Fire Boards to become Body Corporates. The first Queensland Chief Fire Inspector was appointed and the State Fire Services Council was formed as the state moved towards the standardisation of equipment and facilities.
The Dalby Fire Brigade continued to upgrade its equipment, with a new fire engine in 1956/7, another in 1965, two-way radios in 1966, and a salvage vehicle in 1967/8. A concrete block smoke room was built in 1970. In mid-1975 tenders were called for further additions to the rear of the main station building to provide a storeroom, board facilities, toilets and office accommodation for the regional fire safety officer (recently appointed) and the chief officer. Dalby builders, JR Perry and Co, were awarded the contract at a cost of $35,974. The 14.7 by 5 metre extension was completed in mid-1976. Extensions to the fire tower were built in 1978 and a new fire engine was also purchased.
The Fire Services Act 1990 led to the amalgamation of a number of departments. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board ceased to exist after June 1990 and the management of the 21 metropolitan stations and the 81 fire boards across the state were amalgamated into the Queensland Fire Services. A further amendment to the Act in 1996 created the Fire and Rescue Authority. The Emergency Services Legislation Act 2001 dissolved this Authority and vested its assets with the State.
The self-contained living areas on the first floor of the Dalby Fire Station continued to be occupied by the Chief Officer or Captain until the late 1990s. The cottage was occupied by one of the firemen until the mid-1990s. At that time it was restumped and ramps were added at the front, when it was converted into an area office of the Department of Community Safety's Queensland Fire and Rescue Service South Western Region. The former men's quarters were relocated to Rangemoore Winery in December 2000. The accommodation areas of the fire station are now used by visiting emergency services personnel, officers attending courses from regional towns as well as by visiting relieving officers. In 2009 a temporary garage was erected on the north-western side of the fire station to accommodate a new tanker appliance.
Dalby is now one of 42 fire stations in the South Western Region, which includes the major towns of Toowoomba and Warwick, and extends west through Cunnamulla and Quilpie to the border with the South Australia. It remains an operational auxiliary fire station, although no longer permanently houses fire brigade staff.
A desktop survey comparing the fire brigade and station files held by the Queensland State Archives, the current listing maintained by the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service of its fire stations, historical images featured on Picture Australia and current street views on Google Maps revealed that the station at Dalby is the oldest remaining regional fire station still in operation. Only one remaining interwar station was possibly constructed earlier, that at Warwick, however it is no longer in use. There appear to be three others remaining in operation in regional Queensland: at Innisfail (1937), Charleville (1938) and Gympie (1940). The six stations built before the Dalby and Warwick stations - those at Rockhampton, Barcaldine, Gladstone, Cunnamulla, Cairns and Maryborough - have all been demolished.
","criteria":"The 1935 core of the Dalby Fire Station - comprising a two-storey brick, steel and concrete structure with a classically influenced street façade - is the oldest surviving, and longest operating, fire station in regional Queensland. The 1935 building core, with its 1953 and 1976 extensions, demonstrate the evolution of fire fighting services in the state's regional towns.
|The Dalby Fire Station demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional interwar fire station including: a central location in the town; ground floor accommodation for the fire appliances and operational facilities; and first floor living accommodation for the chief fire officer. The 1935 Dalby Fire Station core and its 1953 and 1976 additions exemplify the evolving functions of a regional fire brigade which has operated continuously from this New Street site since 1920.
","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":3983,"place_ref":602805,"name":"Myall Park Botanic Garden","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Myall Park Road","suburb":"GLENMORGAN","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"Myall Park Botanic Garden is located approximately 7 kilometres north-west of Glenmorgan in the Western Downs region, Queensland. Within its 132.3 hectare property boundary is a garden landscape of Australian flora of approximately 90 hectares. The site is mostly flat, fenced along its property boundary, and includes a cluster of small timber buildings close to its eastern boundary. The site, formerly part of a large pastoral property is largely surrounded by a rural landscape used for grazing and cropping.
\nRetained local brigalow-belah vegetation provides a bush setting for the botanic garden. The garden comprises thousands of ex situ Australian arid, semi-arid and dry tropical plants, mostly indigenous to other parts of Queensland and Australia. While the aesthetic of the garden is reflective of an uncultivated inland bush landscape, there is an underlying formality in the layout. The garden is organised into approximately 72 divisions, defined by timber corner pegs. Within the original divisions laid out by David Gordon, plants are grown according to their species, in some instances on raised gravel beds, and are located adjacent to other divisions within their genus. More recent divisions established in the garden generally feature plants from different genera; this occurs in response to soil and climatic variables within the garden or for a particular educational or scientific focus.
\nSoil types within the garden include neutral grey brigalow soil, light loams over clays, red lateritic acid gravel, and a layer of blue/grey clay. Some plantings, including some of the oldest in the eucalypt divisions, may not initially appear their age because of the growing conditions and the particular characteristics of the plants. Plants are often marked with a timber stake with identification tags that include their species and planting date.
\nReflective of natural growing conditions, established plants receive minimal maintenance. Ground cover, where it exists, is generally not mown in the majority of the grounds, to foster and shelter any unassisted germination. Within the garden, plant labelling and interpretative signage is intentionally unobtrusive.
\nLarge water tanks on tall stands are positioned within the garden. Early galvanised steel irrigation pipes are laid throughout the garden and retain sprinkler heads, although these are not in use. A dam for the garden's water purposes is situated on the north-west boundary of the property.
\nA looping gravel drive circulates through the site, entering from the eastern side of the property and broadly follows the edges of the garden, as laid out by David Gordon. A number of dirt walking paths meander through different sections of the garden.
\nThe original Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' is located in a grevillea division close to the western edge of the garden. Together with the other Gordon hybrids, it features in the ‘The Gordon Grevilleas Walk'. Examples of the parent plants Grevillea bipinnatifida and G. banksii, are planted directly adjacent. Grevillea ‘Sandra Gordon' and G. ‘Merinda Gordon' are planted nearby, although these are not the original plants.
\nThe gallery and toilets (1995) and the old sawmill shed (mostly reconstructed) near the entry of the park are not of cultural heritage significance although they are important components in the current day activities of the garden. A number of artworks (not of cultural heritage significance) are located throughout the garden.
\nNear the eastern edge of the garden, south-east of the gallery is the cluster of buildings comprising Terpersie Cottage (former nurseryman's residence), the nursery, the garage, and the single men's shearers' quarters. To the south of this group is Avochie Cottage.
\nTerpersie Cottage is a small low-set single-storey timber residence. It has a multi-hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a weatherboard exterior. A large brick chimney is on the eastern side and a screened porch is on the north-eastern corner. The building is highly-intact, with very little alteration evident.
\nThe nursery comprises two single-storey timber-framed buildings connected by a covered entry to form an L-shape around a fenced yard. The long wing accommodates the potting room (slab-on-ground), seed storage room - a timber lined room, and a rear laundry and toilet. The potting room is unlined and includes timber benches clad with metal sheet, timber shelving and early gardening paraphernalia. The concrete floor has spoon drains now partially filled with cement. The seed room contains built-in silky -oak cupboards with many drawers containing seeds collected over a long period of time, most labelled with plant names. Some garden related archival records are also housed in the seed room.
\nThe other wing of the nursery accommodates the misting house - a timber framed glasshouse with a concrete slab floor. The lower part of the walls is lined internally with fibre cement sheets. Above this on the side walls are clear glass operable louvres and on the end wall is a large timber-framed pivot window surrounded by fixed clear glass. The roof is clad with overlapping sheets of rippled, fixed glass and near the ridge are clear glass operable louvres. The roof is sheltered externally by a shade cloth mounted on a metal framing. This shade cloth is a later addition, replacing the original louvred panels. The room contains raised timber benches/boxes for plants that incorporate plastic irrigation pipes with misting nozzles. The floor retains spoon drains under the plant benches. The nursery yard retains four hardening bays. These are large timber ‘boxes' on legs that have a sheltering frame covered in shade cloth.
\nAt the south eastern corner of the nursery yard is a garage. This is a single-storey, slab-on-ground building with a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It comprises three bays with a fourth bay accommodated in a lean-to on the eastern side. The exterior is weatherboards and the interior is unlined. The garage contains approximately 70 plastic tubs that temporarily holds the herbarium collection of Myall Park. The collection is comprised of thousands of pages of pressed plant specimens mounted on paper. Individual specimens, record collecting locations and dates, and botanical information.
\nTo the north-east of the garage is the single men's Shearers' Quarters, an L-shaped single-storey low-set timber building with a chamferboard exterior and a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The long wing accommodates the shearers' bedrooms each with a timber built-in cupboard. The bedrooms are accessed from a long eastern verandah that is enclosed at either end for a bathroom. The short wing accommodates the cook's rooms including a kitchen with a stove recess retaining an early cast-iron stove and early built-in kitchen cupboards. At the junction of the two wings is a dining room with a servery into the kitchen and a large brick fireplace. The chimney breast has an external apron that holds a laundry copper.
\nTo the south of this group is Avochie Cottage, a single-storey low-set timber residence with a chamferboard exterior and a multi-gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It accommodates three bedrooms, kitchen, lounge, bathroom, toilet, and a verandah on the southern side. It has two large brick chimneys; the kitchen chimney retains an early cast iron stove.
","history":"Myall Park Botanic Garden, Glenmorgan, a large garden devoted to the growing of Australian flora, was established in 1941 by David Gordon (1899-2001).
David (Dave) Morrice Gordon (AM) was born 9 July 1899, the fifth of nine children for James and Agnes Gordon. In 1910 the Gordon family moved to the Western Downs region from Talbot, in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria. The Gordons took up a ‘prickly pear selection' known as ‘The Lagoons' (later Lesmoir) on the Balonne River, as part of a group settlement. The rapid infestation of the prickly pear plant Opuntia stricta led to abandoned properties and surrendered large pastoral leases in affected areas of Queensland. In response, the state government introduced prickly pear selections, where land either infested or partly affected was offered for lease at good terms. Group Settlement Schemes, where three or more parties selected in the same parish, were promoted as part of this process. By the beginning of 1909, 870,849 acres (352,420.087 ha) had been taken up as prickly pear selections, the majority being in the Dalby Land Agent's district, where the Gordons settled.[1]
The planting of Australian flora in gardens and house settings began early in Queensland and other Australian colonies, but it was not until the latter decades of the 20th century, that their popularity became widespread and gardens devoted to Australian flora became common. From the middle of the nineteenth century, large tall trees from the Araucaria family such as the bunya and hoop pines, and fig trees were widely planted, or in some instances, retained on properties after clearing. Ferns and palms suitable for indoors or simple ferneries became increasingly popular in the late 1800s. The nationalist sentiment of the Federation era influenced a wider appreciation of Australia's flora and fauna, with native plants and animals appropriated as patriotic symbols in architecture and the decorative arts and crafts. While horticulturalists, botanists and other gardening writers increasingly advocated the use of natives in gardens, most household gardeners preferred to plant out their gardens with plants that reminded them of their largely European origins. For people who were interested, only a small number of nurseries stocked a sufficient range of Australian plants. In the early 1900s Australian flora was more likely to be seen in decorative architectural elements of domestic housing than in gardens.[2]
Though their collections were not always extensive, one type of place where Australian flora could be found was in Queensland's botanic gardens. A network of experimental botanic gardens all initially named Queen's Park, were established throughout Queensland from the mid-1850s. Walter Hill, the first Superintendent of Brisbane's Botanic Garden [QHR 600067], played a key guiding role, advising regional botanic gardens, lobbying governments for support and corresponding with like-minded institutions including the Melbourne Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. Sustained by annual government grants, local residents were trustees of these early gardens and professional gardeners were employed to develop them. While part of the horticultural purpose of these places was to provide public spaces of ornament and beauty for recreation and education, research and experimentation into the utilitarian qualities of plants were also major functions.[3]
From a very early age, Dave Gordon was interested in Australian flora. Nurtured by his father's own interest, by the age of seven he was helping to collect seed and raise native trees in Talbot. At the age of 15, following the death of his father and the enlisting of his brother Jim for military service during World War I Gordon became largely responsible for running ‘The Lagoons'. In between developing the family property for wool production and completing schooling by correspondence, Gordon further developed his interest in native plants through extensive reading, seed collecting and experimental plantings.[4]
In late 1926 the Gordons acquired Myall Park, comprising part of the combined blocks of Cobblegun, Lower Cobblegun and Miggabaroo, that in turn were formerly part of the large Murilla consolidated pastoral run. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Gordon improved Myall Park and acquired more property to increase wool production capacity. In 1940 a pre-existing house on the property was relocated to a ridge just west of Myall Creek and enlarged. Single men's shearing quarters were also built nearby, which were used as temporary accommodation by the Gordon family before the house was completed.[5]
On pastoral properties producing wool, the provision of accommodation for seasonal workers during the shearing season was a necessity. Shearers' quarters were built to varying standards all over Queensland from the 1840s. The Shearer's and Sugar Worker's Act 1905 was the first Queensland legislation to prescribe minimum standards for ‘proper and sufficient' seasonal worker's housing. The Workers' Accommodation Act 1915 and subsequent amendments extended these provisions. Requirements for quarters included a location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, suitable building materials, provision of a verandah, sleeping rooms for workers of a minimum size and height, and separate kitchen, dining room and cook's quarters.[6]
To the south-west of the house, Gordon's long term vision was to establish a large garden of native plants. The site did not suit grazing purposes and featured aspects desirable for growing the type of arid and semi-arid plants favoured by Gordon. Well-drained, the area was largely unaffected by humidity and frost, had access to water, and featured a range of soil types. While beauty and climatic suitability were important considerations, Gordon also consciously chose particular inland plants for conservation purposes, because of their vulnerability in their natural habitat from land clearing and grazing practices.[7]
The prickly pear infestation was successfully controlled across Queensland by 1933 after the introduction of the Cactoblastis moth in the mid-1920s. Wool production increased and prices gradually recovered following the worst years of the Depression. Transport links were improved by the extension of the branch railway line from Dalby to its terminus, the newly surveyed town of Glenmorgan, seven kilometres south-east of Myall Park in 1931. These factors meant by the beginning of the 1940s Gordon could devote more time to establishing his garden. In 1941 the first garden plantings commenced, including Needlewood Hakea leucoptera, Scarlet Bottlebrush Callistemon macropunctatus) and Silver Cassia Senna artemisiodes and species of Acacias and Eucalypts.[8]
Gordon's interest brought him into contact and correspondence with fellow native plant (and wildlife) enthusiasts from across Australia, including botanists, horticulturalists and naturalists. By the early 1940s he was providing specimens and corresponding with the Queensland Herbarium. Another early contact was George Althofer, who with his brother Peter, established Nindethana, one of Australia's earliest commercial nurseries dedicated to native flora at Dripstone, New South Wales. Gordon ordered many of his first plants and seeds from Nindethana and continued to do so over many years until Myall Park became more self sufficient in the mid-1960s.[9]
While a private garden, the Myall Park Botanic Garden was a serious botanic undertaking from its beginnings. The singular emphasis on collecting and growing native flora was an important step in the evolution of Queensland's botanic gardens. Myall Park was only one of a handful of larger scale gardens with a botanical focus established in the first half of the twentieth century in Queensland. Others were Laurel Park Bank in Toowoomba (1932), originally a private and later council owned garden with a large collection of exotics; Anderson Park in Townsville (1932) a council owned collection of native and exotic tropical flora (mainly trees); and Adele's Grove, Albert Lestang's private experimental botanic garden. Located along Lawn Hill Creek in savannah country 200 km southwest of Burketown, by 1939 Lestang had planted over 1000 species of exotic and native plants, shrubs and trees. Lestang corresponded with Dave Gordon and sent him Grevillea and Acacia seeds, before his garden was almost completely destroyed by fire and flooding events in the early 1950s.[10]
The 1950s were the key decade of development for Myall Park. Gordon was able to invest more time and money in the garden because of a boom in wool value that saw prices triple between 1947 and 1951.[11] By this time 26 000 sheep were being shorn annually and Gordon was able to leave much of the responsibility of the property's day-to-day operations with an overseer. A timber residence for the overseer and family (now known as Avochie Cottage) was constructed in the early 1950s, south of the shearer's quarters.[12] One hundred and twenty-eight hectares were fenced to prevent livestock from entering the garden. While much of the fenced area was cleared for growing purposes, with the managed garden taking up about 90 hectares, some existing brigalow-belah vegetation was retained, providing a bush setting for the garden.[13]
In 1952, Dave Gordon married Dorothy Gemmell. Born in 1930, Dorothy was raised in Glen Aplin in the Granite Belt region, and was from a family of keen naturalists. Sharing her husband's interest in Australian flora, she strongly supported the development of the garden, assisting in numerous garden-related correspondence, preparing Australian flower displays for regional shows and events and acting as a guide and host to many of Myall Park's visitors. Prior to her marriage Dorothy had studied art, and for a period was an art teacher at Fairholme School in Toowoomba. Her immersion in garden-related activities influenced the development of her art, especially the production of botanic watercolours. Her work appeared in The Bulletin, and she was commissioned by government officials to produce art as gifts. Through her involvement in art groups who often visited Myall Park, she drew local attention to the beauty of the garden.[14]
In 1951, Gordon employed English horticulturalist Len Miller, an assisted migrant soldier who worked as a gardener for Bristol Council, providing accommodation for him and his wife Ivy in a new timber house, (later called Terpersie) at Myall Park. Miller's first project was to plant out and record 1000 plants that Gordon had accumulated. By this time a makeshift nursery was in operation. Miller also assisted Gordon in collecting plant specimens and seeds. Initially done locally, over 1952-53 Miller travelled to New South Wales and Victoria, collecting and exchanging plants with nurseries and other enthusiasts. In 1954, Len and Ivy Miller decided to leave Myall Park. Gordon offered the Millers a contract to travel to Western Australia to places he had identified for plant collection. Between September 1954 and May 1955, the Millers collected over 700 herbarium specimens, 500 seed species and many cuttings. Collecting both cuttings and seeds meant the garden could grow plants true to their parents and raise seeds that could exhibit diversity. Complementing Gordon's existing specimens and seeds, Len Miller's collection came to comprise a substantial proportion of the Myall Park herbarium.[15]
Alfred (Alf) Gray replaced Len Miller, working from 1954 to 1957 at Myall Park. Gordon met Gray in 1951 while visiting nurseries and native plant enthusiasts in Victoria and New South Wales. Gray, a forester, nursery manager, seed collector and propagator, was highly regarded by the time he arrived at Myall Park. As officer-in-charge at the Wail Forest Commission Nursery in Western Victoria (1946-54), Gray had pioneered arid land revegetation through provenance seed harvesting and native plant supply.[16]
Gray's work at Myall Park focussed on seed raising, with planting and watering work in the garden the responsibility of Gordon. While Gray was working at Myall Park the infrastructure to support the functions of the garden were improved. Drawing on his prior experience, Gray designed suitable nursery structures. According to Gordon, he built for Gray the types of structures that the Victorian government would not supply for him at Wail in Victoria.[17] The nursery comprised a single-storey timber building with a potting room and a seed storage room, connected by a covered entry to a timber-framed glasshouse/misting room with a concrete slab floor. The timber building was constructed first and the glasshouse was a later addition. A yard to the rear of the buildings housed four large timber hardening bays. The nursery was built by Harry Howe, with the assistance of cabinetmaker Bill Dunmall, who fitted out the vermin proof seed storage room with silky oak cabinet drawers. Cypress pine milled on the property was used in the construction of the buildings. A catalogue system was used to record seed source and date, supplier and usage. Details of propagations, planting locations and survival rates were all recorded. Around this time a large single room, lined with tall cupboards and work benches was constructed at the Gordon family residence house, to provide an art space for Dorothy and to store herbarium specimens. The house is now located within the Myall Park pastoral property, just outside the Botanic Garden boundary.[18] The herbarium specimens formerly located in the house are now held by the Myall Park Botanic Garden.
In 1952 Gordon commissioned the damming of a section of Myall Creek, northeast of the house and garden, to increase water supplies. This was done in 1952 by Joh Bjelke-Petersen (later Premier of Queensland 1968-87), who was working at Myall Park as a contractor clearing vegetation. Over time Gordon filled the artificial lake with native waterlilies from the local area and beyond. Like the Gordon house, the lake is now located within the Myall Park pastoral property. While the garden featured plants that usually received little rainfall in their natural habitats, an irrigation system was installed to assist with acclimatisation after planting out, and to counter any long-term drought conditions. The water system used a network of water tanks on high stands connecting to galvanised piping and hundreds of above ground sprinklers. During particularly dry and hot periods, up to half of the water in the 25,000 gallon (113,652.297 litres) main tank would be used in a day.[19]
Gray was also sent on collecting trips by Dave Gordon. During one three month trip, seeds and detailed growing conditions were collected for more than 1000 species. By the time Gray left Myall Park in 1957, he (like his predecessor Len Miller) had made a major and important contribution to the development of the garden and herbarium. Many of the plants that grow in the garden derive from seeds collected by Gray and Miller. Albert Robinson replaced Alf Gray and worked for ten years in the garden, continuing propagation projects and cultivating existing plants. Bob Doney also worked in the Myall Park garden during the 1960s.[20] Gordon's employment of nurserymen for what was, at this time, essentially a private hobby, illustrates his passion and serious investment in the garden.
A range of methods were used at Myall Park to provide successful raising and growing conditions, including the preparation of special growing beds, and experiments with soil structure and composition.[21] The influence of Gordon's father was evident in the layout of the garden, through the practice of planting in clumps rather than lines. The garden was organised into divisions and Gordon methodically planted as much of a genus as was available together in the garden. Beyond aesthetic and environmental benefits, this planting method was also a way of encouraging natural hybridisation. The genus Grevillea had been a focus during plant collecting trips and in 1963 a new Grevillea hybrid appeared in the garden. Displaying the low growing characteristics of the Grevillea bipinnatifida, together with the vibrant flame coloured flowers of the G. banksii, and the ability to flower throughout the year and attract birds, the hybrid featured highly desirable attributes for gardeners. Gordon named the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' after his eldest daughter (who died aged 16 from illness in 1969) and distributed it freely to nurseries in Brisbane and Sydney, without payment. Two other hybrids, named after the Gordon's other daughters, Grevillea 'Sandra Gordon' (also a popular garden plant) and G.'Merinda Gordon' were also produced at Myall Park.[22]
With its appealing characteristics and adaptability, Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' became a very popular plant in Australian gardens. It was the first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973. In 1984 the journal Australian Horticulture acknowledged its impact; ‘Market-wise it was a winner. The public readily gave it a place in their gardens. Landscapers looked upon it as ‘a gift from above' and it was planted by the tens of thousands'.[23] The Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' is the floral emblem of the Western Downs Regional Council and in 2006 was chosen as the floral emblem for the ‘Year of the Outback'.
The garden was well established by the early 1960s, with plantings maturing and self sown species proliferating where space was available. The ‘grandiose scale' of Gordon's efforts to conserve and grow inland native plants had been acknowledged by the mid-1950s [24] and visitors became increasingly common at Myall Park. Among the visitors were influential native plant garden advocates Jean ‘Correa' Galbraith, Thistle Harris and landscape designer Edna Walling. In addition to visits from specialist interest groups, naturalists, botanists and scientists from institutions like the Queensland Herbarium, experts from other disciplines also conducted research at Myall Park, including world bee authority Dr Charles Michener.[25]
The gardening activities at Myall Park in the post-war decades occurred at a time when the use of native plants in Australian gardens, after decades of advocacy by enthusiasts, became more popular. Increased environmental awareness, availability of native plants in nurseries, architectural fashions for bushland settings for houses and garden designs reflective of natural Australian environments all contributed to this popularity. For some gardeners, this meant accommodating a few natives among a predominance of exotics. For the most fervent, only native plants were considered suitable for their gardens. The Society for Growing Australian Plants (of which David Gordon was a life member) was established in Melbourne in 1957 and rapidly grew to become a national body with state branches. Many other specialized native plant interest groups flourished throughout Australia.
The 1970s were a period of inactivity in the Myall Park garden. Dave Gordon was unable to work in the garden following the onset of severe arthritis. The decline in wool prices meant less money could be spent on the garden, and no gardeners were employed during this period. Other than occasional minor maintenance and intermittent irrigation during very dry periods, no planting or nursery work occurred. The inherent climatic resilience of the type of plants in the garden meant that although there were some losses, many survived.[26]
In the 1980s, Dave Gordon's health improved and he was able once again to spend time in the garden. Nurseryman Reg Carter was employed to operate the nursery and propagate seed cuttings and plants. This renewed activity coincided with the increased recognition of Myall Park as a significant botanic garden in ex-situ conservation of rare and endangered plants. In 1987 Gordon was made a Member of the Order of Australia ‘in recognition of service to horticulture and conservation, particularly in the growing of Australian flora'. A notable visitor during this period was Professor Grenville Lucas, Keeper of the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, accompanied by staff from the Queensland Herbarium, who acknowledged the unique importance of the collection.[27]
Dorothy Gordon's most important body of work was a collection of 48 botanical watercolours of Australian flora. Following her death in a car accident in 1985, a book of this work, Australian Wildflower Paintings, with botanical notes by Dave Gordon was published in 1988, with the assistance of a Bicentennial grant and Meandarra Arts Council. In 1991 the collection was displayed in the Queensland Pavilion at the Osaka Garden Expo.
Shortly after the first Myall Park Botanic Garden Open Day in September 1988, Gordon approached friends and family to help determine the future management of the garden. The first meeting of the Myall Park Botanic Garden Committee was held in October, marking a new phase of activity. A ‘Friends of Myall Park Botanic Garden' association was formed in 1991 to assist with funding and to encourage volunteer work both on and offsite. In 1992, the Committee became an incorporated company limited, with a Board of Directors. In 1994, 132 hectares was excised from the Myall Park pastoral property and granted to Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited, to hold the land in trust for Garden purposes.[28] Over five decades the garden evolved from a unique private garden devoted to inland native plants, to an extensive botanic garden with important conservation values.
There is no formal accreditation of Australian botanic gardens. The organisation Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand Incorporated defines a botanic garden as: '...gardens open to the public which grow plants for public enjoyment, scientific, horticultural, conservation or educational purposes, and which have local, national or international roles.[29] Between 1970 and 2009, twenty-seven botanical gardens were established or commenced throughout Queensland. While some of these gardens contain a mix of Australian and exotic species, an increasing number concentrate only on Australian flora, and display vegetation from their particular bioregion.[30]
Following Federal government grant funding in 1995, an art gallery designed by Brisbane architect Brian Donovan was opened, housing a permanent display of Dorothy Gordon's original botanical watercolours. Within the grounds of the park the former shearer's quarters and overseer's residence (Avochie Cottage) are used for visitor accommodation.[31]
Dave Gordon died in 2001 at the age of 102, having made an outstanding contribution to the fields of Australian flora conservation and horticulture. The Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited has been active in preserving Dave Gordon's legacy. Approximately 20 new divisions have been established under their directorship. Onsite caretakers and volunteers from across Queensland play a large role in maintaining the garden, nursery, seedbank and herbarium, and records. Research and other partnerships have been fostered with academic institutions, local government and other community groups. The park has widened its research, education and interpretation activities beyond flora to encompass broader biodiversity values.[32] Over 200 species of birds have been sighted at Myall Park, evidence of its importance as a wildlife refuge. Members of the group Birds Queensland have been longstanding visitors to the garden for bird watching and recording.
Myall Park is also a popular venue for artists, photographers, local schools and other interest groups for a range of cultural activities. At the 2009 Open Day, Clocked Out (ensemble-in-residence at Queensland Conservatorium) and the Australian Voices choir collaborated on "Grevilleas of Myall Park", inspired by the flora of the park. Commissioned artworks are located throughout the garden.
","criteria":"Myall Park Botanic Garden is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's private and botanic gardens. Established in 1941 by David Gordon, the garden developed from a unique private garden of native plants to an extensive botanic garden with significant conservation and horticultural values. In its earliest decades of development, the garden's scale and singular emphasis on collecting, growing and experimenting with native plants was unparalleled in Queensland. It is thought to be Queensland's oldest garden wholly devoted to Australian flora.
As the place where the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' first appeared, one of Australia's most popular and widely planted cultivars, the garden is closely associated with the increasing use of native plants in Australian gardens from the 1960s. The first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973, the parent Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' remains in the garden.
Myall Park Botanic Garden has fulfilled many of the traditional functions associated with botanical gardens since the 1940s; increasing horticultural and scientific knowledge about flora, sharing information, seed and plant stock with like-minded institutions, experts and enthusiasts, providing an attractive and educational venue for public recreation (since 1988); and in some instances, providing plant material to nurseries and the public.
|The successful creation of the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon', encouraged through a deliberate planting process, was an important technical achievement in the field of Australian floral horticulture in the 1960s. The first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973, it is now one of Australia's most popular and widely planted native plants. The parent Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' remains in the garden.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden's important collection of garden plants, seed bank, herbarium specimens and detailed records, includes ex situ examples of Australian arid, semi-arid and dry tropical flora rare or threatened in their natural habitats in Queensland and other Australian states. The age and scope of this botanic garden is unique in the history of Queensland's gardens.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden's layout, flora, infrastructure, early gardening implements and collection of seeds, herbarium specimens and detailed records have the potential to yield important information related to historical horticultural practices and the conservation and knowledge of Australian flora.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden is important in demonstrating both the principal characteristics of botanic gardens in Queensland and significant variations within this place type. The garden's collection of living plants, complemented by the seed bank, herbarium specimens and detailed records, nursery and residence are all important elements shared with other botanic gardens. Contrasting with the more formal design features commonly associated with botanic gardens, it is located within a setting of local vegetation. The layout of the garden is organized into divisional sections without hard edged borders or lawns. Minimal maintenance practices on the plants and garden beds are more reflective of natural growing conditions.
The highly intact 1950s purpose-built nursery complex - housing potting and seed storage rooms, glasshouse, hardening bays and early gardening implements, together with the garden's irrigation infrastructure - illustrate the spaces, processes and structures used to establish and maintain the garden. The residence (Terpersie) located adjacent to the nursery demonstrates the provision of accommodation for the garden's nurserymen and their families.
The shearer's quarters are a good example of the type of worker's housing provided on pastoral properties following the introduction of workers accommodation legislation in Queensland in the early twentieth century. Highly intact, its principal characteristics include the building's location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, provision of a verandah and separate sleeping rooms for workers, kitchen and cook's quarters, and dining and bath rooms.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden has a special association with David and Dorothy Gordon. David Gordon AM (1899-2001) established the garden and was responsible its development for over 50 years. His wife Dorothy Gordon (1930-85) assisted David Gordon in the development of the garden for over 30 years, and promoted Australian flora through her botanical art. The Gordon's played an important role in fostering the appreciation of Australian flora for horticulture and conservation in Queensland and the nation.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden is important for its aesthetic significance, exhibiting picturesque qualities. It has distinct integrity as a cultivated landscape of only Australian native plants. It is a living place, constantly evolving, supporting a diversity of flora and fauna, and varying with the seasons. As such, it offers a changing mix of evocative and complex experiences that delight all the senses.
The importance of the aesthetic experience of Myall Park Botanic Garden has been demonstrated over many years in its popularity as a tourist destination and its inspiration for artists, writers, photographers, and musicians.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden has a special and longstanding association with gardening and Australian flora and fauna enthusiasts and experts. The garden's horticultural and conservation values have been recognised and appreciated since the 1950s. The garden has been a site of inspiration, education and research for naturalists, botanists and scientists and a range of specialist interest groups including the Society for Growing Australian Plants, the Australian Garden History Society and Birds Queensland.
Through their involvement as custodians, volunteers and supporters, the Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited, the Friends of Myall Park Botanic Garden, and the regional community have strong associations with the garden.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H | 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 a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | 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":15216,"place_ref":600441,"name":"Dalby War Memorial and Gates","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Patrick Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park in Dalby facing Patrick Street. The park is entered from Patrick Street through a set of memorial gates flanked by sandstone pillars surmounted by torch shaped lights. The pillars sit on slightly larger base steps with picked stone faces and smooth-faced margins to the sides and top. They are of similar design to the pedestal of the memorial and capped by the same wide cornice. At the top of the front face of each pillar is a relief carved AIF badge with the date 1914 carved below the emblem on the right, and 1919 on the left.The swing gates are of wrought iron.
The memorial is centred within a wide path which leads from the gates and divides at the rear of the monument.
The sandstone memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a smooth faced step capped by two cyma recta mouldings of decreasing scale. Rising from this is the pedestal dado which has bronze plaques with brass lettering on each of the four faces. Bronze wreaths are located above each plaque which bear the names of the 360 local men who took part in the First World War including the names of the 64 fallen. The dado is crowned by a large cornice comprising a number of cyma recta mouldings and steps.
Surmounting the pedestal is a larger than life-sized bronze digger statue. The statue portrays an Australian Infantry soldier standing with head bowed and arms reversed.
","history":"The Dalby War Memorial was unveiled on 26 July 1922 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan. The memorial and gates were designed by local monumental mason, J. Shill and British firms contributed to the design and construction of the digger statue. The stone and bronze memorial honours the 360 local men who served in the First World War, including the 64 fallen.
Funds for the erection of the memorial were raised by public subscriptions and functions arranged by a public committee.
Dalby is a small town west of Toowoomba. It was surveyed as a township in 1854, and began to prosper with the arrival of the railway in 1868. However, this was shortlived as the railway eventually moved further west and the township of Dalby came to depend on its dairy industry and agricultural produce.
In 1919, Dalby requested advice from the Queensland Institute of Architects on the design of its war memorial. The Institute suggested that the town hold a design competition, which it would supervise. It is unclear what occurred next, however there is no evidence to suggest that a competition was held.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The Dalby digger is based on a Sergeant-Major of the Grenadier Guards and was modelled by British sculptors, John Whitehead and Sons of London. It is one of only two known examples of their work in Queensland, as well as being one of only two bronze diggers in the state. To ensure accuracy of dress, the modelling was supervised by an officer from Australian Headquarters and Australia House lent certain accoutrements for copying.
The statue was cast at the foundry of A B Burton in London, whilst the stonework, including the pedestal and gate pillars, was produced by J. Shill of Dalby.
The bronze plates bearing the names of the soldiers were created by Ernest Gunderson who established his company in Brisbane after migrating from Norway. The company operated until the mid 1930s and supplied honour boards statewide. His work was distinctly original, often incorporating both Australian and British motifs.
Memorials were often enclosed by a fence, indicating a special commemorative area. Occasionally this was further surrounded by a park or other space for the gathering of people on ANZAC Day. In places, such as the, the The Dalby War Memorial and gates, are located in Anzac Park which was gazetted in 1906. The memorial, gates and the setting are considered as a complete entity in which each elements complemented the other.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|This particular digger statue is rare as one of only two in Queensland which are cast in bronze and one of only two known works by London sculptors John Whitehead and Sons in Queensland. It is also an uncommon example of a memorial still situated in its intact setting.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Dalby demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial and its setting are a landmark within Dalby and contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape. The memorial and gates are of aesthetic significance for their high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with the firms involved in its erection including sculptors John Whitehead and Sons (London), masons J Shill (Dalby) and metalworker Ernest Gunderson (Brisbane) as examples of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15716,"place_ref":600941,"name":"Jimbour House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"86 Jimbour Station Road","suburb":"JIMBOUR EAST","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Jimbour House is a rural homestead complex located in open country on the Darling Downs north of Dalby and approximately 250 kilometres northwest of Brisbane. The main residence is situated on a slight rise but is now masked by the mature trees of the surrounding garden. The complex includes a substantial two-storeyed sandstone residence set in extensive gardens and a number of auxiliary buildings and structures, some of which predate the main house.
Grounds
The house is approached along a drive planted with mature Jacaranda trees. Beyond the entrance gates, the house is surrounded by a large formal garden, laid out and largely planted in the 1920s, with a curved gravelled driveway wrapping around a circular garden bed divided into four sections with a fountain at the intersection of the bisecting paths. The gardens feature planting out beds and large mature trees including a number of Queen palms (Arecastrum nomanzofflanum), and furniture of substantial construction. A low stone wall marks the southern boundary of the 1870s garden. Beyond this there is a swimming pool (1950) to the south of the front circular drive and a productive kitchen garden at the rear of the main house.
Main House (1874-77)
Jimbour House comprises three bays; two longitudinal projecting end bays with a central transverse bay, lined on the principal façade with an open terrace on the upper level supported on Doric order columns on stone plinths, paired in some places. Centrally located on the principal façade is a semi-circular projection, apparent in the roofline and through both storeys. This defines the principal entrance. The roof is steeply pitched, hipped over the three bays of the building and clad with Welsh slates. Dominating the roofline are four large brick chimneystacks with corbelled caps. Projecting from the two ends of the building are classically-inspired single-storeyed wings with parapets concealing their rooflines. The terrace on the upper level of the house has been built in at the rear and there is a single-storeyed brick kitchen block below it.
The interior of the house has a wide hall running for most of its length on both levels. The lower level hall has a fireplace on one wall, reminiscent of the galleries in English country houses used as winter promenades. The joinery is of a high quality.
The ground floor contains receptions rooms, a billiard room and a large, square entrance hall with the main bedroom opening off it. The upper floor echoes the layout of the ground floor and has an open paved terrace, bedrooms, and suites of rooms. One bedroom has two hunting scenes frescoes (drawn directly onto the plaster of the walls) dated 16/11/1879.
Bluestone Building (1868 residence, remodelled in the 1870s as a kitchen and staff quarters and in the 1920s as men's quarters)
To the rear of the main house and separated from it by a garden area, is a single-storeyed, low-set bluestone building with sandstone quoins, rectangular in plan, which was formed from the lower storey of the 1868 main homestead residence. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The wall at the eastern end of the building is of weatherboards with bricks infilling between the quoins, following the removal of an adjoining wing. The rooms are arranged in a linear fashion, each opening onto a verandah along the southern side. The interior has fibrous cement linings and battened ceilings. One room has a brick fireplace.
Outbuildings (various dates) and Airstrip (1950s)
Several working buildings are set low to the ground around an open area to the rear (north) of the bluestone house. These include a timber and corrugated iron stables and garage that shows variations in building methods and materials corresponding with the various historical stages of construction. A workshop, situated between the stables and the bluestone house, is of timber construction with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron, a verandah along the front (western) elevation, and a later lean-to extension along the rear (eastern) elevation. It contains a shaft and drive belt from a shearing machine. This group of ancillary buildings also includes a small timber cottage, originally two-roomed, relocated from the site of an early woolshed complex to the north of the airstrip. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and an attached verandah. To the east of this small building is a metal arched hangar of the 'igloo' type, and beside this is a small timber framed and corrugated iron clad fuel store, with a gabled roof. The airstrip is located to the north of the outbuildings.
Chapel (1868)
At some distance west from the main house and north of the main drive is a simple timber chapel set on low stumps. It is rectangular in plan with the sanctuary under a separate roof at one end and a porch at the other. The main roof is clad with late 20th century tiles and has a small belfry. The roofs of the belfry, sanctuary and porch are clad in corrugated iron. The porch roof has been raised to accommodate a small film projection room above the door, illustrating the multi-functioned use of this building. Small projection windows perforate the wall into the church. Inside, the main roof is supported on scissor trusses and is ceiled with timber. The nave is lined with composite board and is lit by small lancet windows with coloured glass. There are carved altar rails and font and timber pews.
Water Tower (1870s, converted 1950s into residential use)
West of the chapel and the main drive is a tall timber tower, 4 storeys in height and square in section, with walls sloping inwards, supporting a large, square, cast iron water tank. The framing is of trimmed tree trunks and hand hewn timber, clad externally with weatherboards dating to the 1870s. The interior now accommodates residential use and is lined with fibrous-cement sheeting and timber cover strips. The ground floor has modern metal-framed sliding doors and windows and contains a visitors' centre and gift shop. The top storey room is decorated with several naïve paintings, executed between 1924 and 1956 by a former employee at Jimbour. From this level, there is external access via a timber ladder to the water tank above. A single storey timber extension has been added to one side.
Bell Memorial (c1881)
The Bell Memorial is located to the south of the water tower. Modern metal railings surround the memorial, which comprises a painted masonry obelisk decorated very simply with a border of acanthus below the plinth on which the shaft rests. The memorial below this is square in section with a plaque to each face, two of which are inscribed in memory of Sir Joshua Peter Bell who died in 1881 and of his son Joshua Thomas Bell who died in 1911. The other two faces are blank.
Stone Store (1864; converted 1960s into residential flats)
To the west/southwest of the main house is a large, rectangular building of pecked sandstone blocks, which now accommodates residential accommodation on two levels. Originally constructed as a store, evidence remains of the massive barred windows and catshead to the upper level. The building has a gabled roof with close eaves, clad in corrugated iron, into which dormer windows have been inserted. The end walls have arched openings on the upper level, which are now glazed. One of them has a small balcony. The building has sash windows and one of the external doors has a mail hatch from the days when this building was used as a post office. Partition walls and some ceilings inside are timber. One of the rear rooms has a blue-green lime wash finish that is believed to be early.
Adjacent to the store is an underground tank or silo and to the north is an early underground water tank or well.
","history":"Jimbour House is a large stone house designed in 1873-74 by Brisbane architects Suter and Voysey and completed by early 1877 as the Darling Downs residence of Joshua Peter Bell, a prominent Queensland pastoralist and politician. It was also the head station of one of Queensland's earliest pastoral properties.
Allan Cunningham, botanist and explorer of the Darling Downs in 1827, considered the discovery of this fertile pastoral land as one of his greatest achievements. In 1840, impelled by the push northward for grazing land, the Leslie brothers arrived on the Downs from the Clarence River district and took up Canning Downs, the first pastoral run in the district.
Soon afterwards, in 1841, Henry Dennis claimed a run of about 3,000,000 acres on behalf of Richard Todd Scougall who owned Liverpool Plains. The area was then known as Jimba or Gimba and the boundaries of this vast run were described as between the Bunya Mountains and the Condamine River. By 1842, when the penal settlement at Brisbane closed and the area was thrown open to free settlement, a cluster of huge pastoral runs had claimed most of the productive land on the Darling Downs. At this time Jimbour was stocked with approximately 11,000 sheep and 700 cattle. Financial difficulties caused Scougall to sell the Jimbour run in 1843 to Thomas Bell of Parramatta, for £3200. At that time the area comprising Jimbour Station was reduced, though it remained one of the largest properties on the Downs. In 1844 explorer Ludwig Leichhardt stayed at Jimbour, at that time the most northerly station on the Downs, preparing for his trip to Port Essington. Dennis, who had been retained as manager of Jimbour by Thomas Bell, accompanied Leichhardt on the first two days of his journey north. Following Dennis' death in 1847 Thomas Bell's sons Joshua Peter and John Alexander arrived to manage the property for Bell & Sons, the family business that comprised Thomas, Joshua Peter and John Alexander Bell. Soon, however, the entire management fell to Joshua, the eldest son. Although only 21 when he took control, Joshua built on the foundations of previous managers to develop Jimbour as one of the best-conducted stations on the Darling Downs, running sheep principally. He married Margaret Miller Dorsey of Ipswich in 1861, and at Jimbour they raised their family.
JP Bell began the association of the Bell family and Jimbour with Queensland politics. In 1860 he ran unsuccessfully for the first Queensland Parliament, but was elected as Member for West Moreton in 1862. He remained involved in politics for the rest of his life and held several cabinet posts, being first appointed as Treasurer in the Herbert ministry in 1864. In 1868 he was returned for the Northern Downs, a constituency that included his own property (Jimbour), and held the seat until he was appointed President of the Legislative Council in 1879. In 1880 he acted as administrator of the Colony for nine months, reflecting the high public esteem in which he was held, and was appointed KCMG in 1881.
In 1864, utilising their pre-emptive purchase rights, Thomas Bell, Joshua Peter Bell and John Alexander Bell acquired title to 4786 acres (pre-emptive portion 1) of the Jimbour holding as tenants in common. This pre-emptive purchase included the head station site. In the same year they commissioned architect Benjamin Backhouse to design a substantial stone store at Jimbour. A small dwelling formerly used by Dennis had been supplemented by a house built for Scougall that the Bell brothers occupied when they first arrived. This burnt down in 1868 and was replaced by a two-storeyed house built of bluestone. As with most large pastoral properties, a small village settlement developed around the main residence, the buildings including a butcher and smithy, and accommodation for a large number of employees, including a manager and overseer. A timber chapel was constructed in 1868, and this also served as a provisional school in the 1870s.
The Jimbour shearing shed was built some miles away from the homestead complex and could handle 250,000 sheep during the season, illustrating the size of the Jimbour pastoral enterprise.
Following Thomas Bell's death in September 1872, the Jimbour freehold was transmitted to Joshua Peter Bell, John Alexander Bell and a third brother, Marmaduke Bell, as tenants in common.
In 1872 Joshua Peter Bell became a founder member and director of the Queensland National Bank. This was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century private banks and attracted widespread Queensland patronage. In 1879 it secured the whole of the government's banking business. By 1880 it held 40% of deposits in the colony and dominated the Queensland economy.
The decade from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s had been a boom period for wool prices and as squatters gained secure tenure of their runs, they began to build handsome houses. About 1873 fashionable Brisbane architects Richard Suter and Annesley Voysey, in partnership from January 1872 to September 1874, were commissioned to design a new sandstone house, handsome and ambitious in scale and quality, as the main residence at Jimbour. These architects had designed homesteads for other prominent Darling Downs pastoralists, including East Talgai Homestead near Allora for Hon. George Edward Clark in 1868 (Suter), and in partnership as Suter and Voysey, Euston at Drayton for William Kent in 1873, and Westbrook Hall near Drayton for Mrs William Beit in 1873-76. These were substantial residences, but none rivalled the scale and grandeur of Jimbour, which appears to have been the largest, grandest and most expensive private house constructed in Queensland in the 1870s.
Work on Jimbour House commenced in late 1874, and was completed by early 1877. With the exception of the Welsh slate used to clad the roof, all the construction materials were sourced locally. Timber included cedar, hoop pine, bunya pine, satin wood, ironbark, spotted gum and blue gum. The quarries at Bunjinnie, a few miles distant from the homestead, provided the sandstone. 10 stonemasons, 9 carpenters and a number of labourers were employed on the house, and nearly 200 men were employed in stone cutting and timber getting and carrying.
The completed residence had a floor space of about 23,000 square feet. The rooms on the ground floor contained the public spaces, including a large dining room, drawing room and morning room. The upper floor contained the bedrooms. Most rooms had fireplaces, and there were also fireplaces in the hallway on both levels. Water, and gas manufactured on Jimbour, were laid on, an exceptional luxury for a rural property at the time. A four-storey timber water tower was constructed to support a large tank and provide water pressure. When the new mansion was complete, the 1868 bluestone residence was converted into a kitchen and staff quarters, connected to the main house by a covered way.
In 1881 a shortage of working capital led the Bell brothers to merge their financial interests in Jimbour with those of Premier Thomas McIlwraith and JC Smyth, forming The Darling Downs and Western Land Company. In October 1881 most of the Jimbour freehold was transferred to the Company, but an area of 100 acres (sub 1 of pre-emptive portion 1), containing the house and most of the outbuildings, was retained by the Bell brothers as tenants in common.
JP Bell died suddenly in December 1881 and his family commissioned a memorial obelisk that was placed to the west of the main house, near the water tower and church. At this time JP Bell's interest in Jimbour House was transferred to his wife Dame Margaret Miller Bell, Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer and Boyd Dunlop Morehead as Trustees. In 1886 JP Bell's Trustees, John Alexander Bell and Marmaduke Bell raised a mortgage on Jimbour House from the Queensland National Bank.
Following JP Bell's death Dame Margaret travelled to England with her children to further their education and did not return to Jimbour until 1889. In the interim, the Darling Downs and Western Land Company experienced financial difficulties and the Queensland National Bank foreclosed on the company in 1884.
Jimbour House continued as the principal residence of Dame Margaret and her eldest son, barrister Joshua Thomas Bell, following their return to Queensland in 1889. JT Bell became a director of the Darling Downs and Western Land Company, and served as private secretary to Premier Sir Samuel Griffith 1890-92. Following the collapse of the Company in the early 1890s, it is understood that the Bell family assigned their interest in the Jimbour freehold to the Queensland National Bank, on the condition that the family was allowed to occupy Jimbour House, which they did until c1912.
JT Bell entered the Queensland Legislative Assembly, serving as Member for Dalby from 1893 until his death in March 1911. He served as Secretary for Lands 1903-1908 and briefly as Secretary for Public Lands and Railways from 6 February to 3 July 1907, during which time he introduced land reforms under the Closer Settlement Act 1906, and paved the way for environmental reform with the State Forests and National Parks Act 1906. He served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from mid-1909 until his death in 1911.
In 1899 Jimbour still comprised close to 130,000 acres and ran about 100,000 sheep. Merino and Lincoln studs were kept, and sheep and cattle from western properties were fattened at Jimbour. In 1907, during JT Bell's control of the Public Lands portfolio, the Queensland Government purchased 121,061 acres of Jimbour land from the Queensland National Bank, under the provisions of the Closer Settlement Act 1906. This land was released for farm selection between 1907 and 1910. The Bank retained 6000 acres of Jimbour land adjacent to Jimbour House. Also during his period in office, JT Bell lobbied for construction of two branch railway lines through the newly opened Jimbour lands, to transport the new wheat crops. The first line, opened in 1906, ran from Dalby to the new town of Bell, named after JP Bell, and the second, opened in 1914, was constructed from Dalby to Jandowae, passing through the new town of Jimbour.
In 1903 JT Bell had married Catherine Jane, widow of Rockhampton solicitor Sydney Jones and daughter of John Ferguson. With JT Bell heavily occupied with his political career, they resided much of the time at their Graceville home, Rakeevan, with Bell returning to Jimbour House when Parliament was not sitting.
Following the death of JT Bell in 1911, the contents of Jimbour House were auctioned in July 1912 and Dame Margaret retired to Brisbane. Through the remainder of the decade the house was occupied by Messrs Thomas and Ryder of Jimbour Station, although they did not acquire title to the house site. In the early 1920s the house on its 100 acres was sold by order of the mortgagee, the Queensland National Bank, with title transferred in November 1922 to Charles Whippell.
The association of the Russell family with Jimbour House commenced in the 1920s when Roma pastoralist Wilfred Adams Russell purchased the property from Whippell. Title was transferred to Russell in January 1925.
WA Russell was born in Queensland in 1874 and educated in New South Wales, where he later acquired pastoral and agricultural interests. In 1909 he acquired an interest in Dalmally Station near Roma and took up residence there in 1910. He further extended his pastoral interests with the acquisition of properties at Cunnamulla and Jimbour Station. Like the Bells before him, WA Russell of Jimbour became involved in local politics. He served as an alderman of the Dalby Town Council and as the member for Dalby in the Queensland Parliament from 1926 until his death in 1932.
At the time of Russell's purchase, Jimbour House was derelict, with several of the ceilings collapsed and only parts of the building habitable, and the gardens were a wilderness. In 1924-25 WA Russell commenced a major programme of restoration and repair. Ceilings were replaced; a new kitchen was added behind the house, incorporating part of the former covered way between the 1870s house and the 1868 bluestone house; and the gardens were redesigned and extended by Brisbane landscape designer Harry Stokes. The bluestone building was badly damaged and parts of the upper floor had crumbled so it was decided to salvage the ground floor as a single storey building and use this as men's quarters.
On 21 November 1925 Jimbour House was formally re-opened with a fund raising fete for Dalby Hospital. This commitment to work for the well being of the community has been continued by the Russell family.
Wilfred Russell died in 1932, and the management of Jimbour passed to his son Charles Russell and Charles' wife Hilary. Continuing the connection between Jimbour and Queensland politics, Charles Russell was elected as a Wambo Shire councillor in 1936 and served as the Member for Dalby in the Queensland Parliament from 1947 to 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he held the Federal seat of Maranoa.
In the 1930s, two large wooden pergolas over the drive at each end of the house and four smaller pergolas in the rose garden were erected, and the rose garden was divided into the four quadrants that now define it. In 1938 the drive was constructed from the front gate to the water tower, and Jacarandas and shrubs were planted along both sides.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Russells developed agriculture (especially wheat) in conjunction with livestock at Jimbour, and new facilities were constructed such as stores, grain silos, feedlots and piggeries. Work on the early buildings and the garden also continued. In 1950 a large swimming pool and wading pool were constructed in the front grounds of Jimbour House and children from surrounding properties were welcome to visit Jimbour and use the pool during the summer months. An airstrip was established at the rear of the house in the 1950s. In 1956 the timber water tower was converted into a four-level residence for the gardener. In the 1960s, the 1864 stone store was converted into two flats with the construction of a mezzanine level and the insertion of dormer windows, and a citrus orchard was planted to the east of the swimming pool.
Charles Russell died in 1977, but Jimbour House remains the property of the Russell family. In the late 20th century a stone fruit and pomme fruit orchard was established to the west of the swimming pool and avenues of trees (planted by distinguished visitors) were commenced on the eastern and western sides of the garden. A vineyard was established on Jimbour land in the late 1990s, but this is not included within the heritage boundary.
","criteria":"Jimbour House, as the main homestead on one of the earliest stations established on the Darling Downs, is important in demonstrating the pattern of early European exploration and pastoral settlement in Queensland. The place is associated with the development of the Downs and of the pastoral industry in Queensland and is important in demonstrating the wealth and ambition of early Queensland pastoralists.
|Jimbour House was an ambitious house in terms of size, style and finish and was intended to support the social and political aspirations of Joshua Peter Bell, an important politician and businessman as well as grazier. It is unique in Queensland as the only really grand country house in the English manner to be built in this State. Other substantial stone homesteads of the era, such as Talgai, Glengallan and Westbrook, came nowhere near to rivalling Jimbour in either size or opulence.
|As a hierarchy of residential and working buildings, the complex of buildings at Jimbour House has the potential to reveal information about the history of one of the earliest pastoral stations in Queensland, and about the nature of early pastoralism in Queensland, which will contribute to our understanding of Queensland's history.
|While Jimbour House and its gardens and ancillary buildings are not typical of a Queensland homestead complex, the building techniques and materials used in their construction, together with the relationship existing between residential and working buildings, provides a good example of a 19th century pastoral station complex.
|Jimbour House has outstanding aesthetic significance as a well designed and constructed house that is pleasing in form, materials and detail. It sits within notable gardens and is a landmark against the flats of the surrounding landscape.
|Jimbour House has special association for the Darling Downs community as a focal point of social life in the region for many years.
|Jimbour House is important for its association with early Darling Downs pioneers and Queensland politicians including Sir Joshua Peter Bell and his son Joshua Thomas Bell.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | 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":15793,"place_ref":601018,"name":"Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former)","alternate_name":"Darling Downs Northern School Support Centre","street_address":"133 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former) is a single storey masonry structure, located on a 564m2 corner site in the central business district of Dalby. The rectangular site is bounded by Cunningham Street, Stuart Street and Groom Lane and by adjoining commercial offices on the southwestern side. The building occupies the entire site, provides an important civic contribution to the steetscape of the main thoroughfare of Dalby through its scale and ordered composition, and is notable for its Art Deco features.
\nThe building is a rendered masonry structure (facebrick at the rear) with a skillion roof that is concealed from the street frontages behind a painted masonry parapet. Roughly rectangular in plan, it has entrances to the northwest and northeast elevations. There is an extension at the rear (1935) in the same style as the original building. The adjoining building on the southwestern side is not of cultural heritage significance at a state level.
\nThe approximately symmetrical, main elevations face northwest to Cunningham Street and northeast to Stuart Street. The northwest elevation is centred on a projecting portico with a recessed entrance. The external corners of the portico walls step in toward the entrance and the recessed walls feature the shield of the Dalby Town Council in low-relief. The council’s shield is also featured in low-relief in the pediment above the portico, and inscriptions of the words “Dalby Town Council, Inc 1863” form the entablature. A pair of timber panelled doors, with a fanlight featuring decorative leadlighting, stand within the portico and are accessed via a small set of stairs, leading up from street level. The northeast elevation features a portico at the northern end, with the council's shield located at the centre of the pediment. A difference in blockwork sizes in the northeast parapet wall indicates where the rear extension was added. Verticality is expressed on the Cunningham Street and Stuart Street elevations by a series of, generally evenly-spaced, fluted pilasters. Located between the pilasters are long and narrow banks of four- and two-light, centre-pivoting casement windows that are surrounded by moulded architraves. Fixed four-light windows stand above the modern doors of the northeast elevation. Decorative low-relief, moulded horizontal bands run at window head-height and along the parapet of both elevations, and squares of a similar design are featured at the top of the pilasters. Vents within a projecting, ground level band ventilate the floor space. The metal bracket supporting a sign on the northeast elevation is modern and is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe southeast (and the rear section of the southwest) elevation, fronting Groom Lane, is facebrick with a horizontal, narrow rendered band running across the elevation at window head-height level. Three four-light, timber-framed, double-hung windows are retained, and the remaining windows have been blocked-up to create a firewall. A narrow section of the rear wall has also been enclosed with later facebrick.
\nInternally, the building comprises the centrally located, highly intact former Council Chamber space and strong room. The chamber has a parquet floor, a timber dado on all four walls with timber screenings on the windows. Changes have occurred to the other offices with the installation of screens to provide for office space; modern carpets and suspended ceilings have also been installed. The front office contains the original timber public counter. Decorative plaster ceilings with decorative cornices are located in the office which contains the strong room. A brass plaque fixed to the wall commemorates the opening of the former Council Chambers by the Premier. Internal alterations have occurred in the rear, former School of Arts, extension. The early walls and ceilings have been removed, and the original layout in this area is no longer discernible.
\n","history":"
The Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former), constructed in 1932 and located between Cunningham Street, Stuart Street and Groom Lane in the central business district of Dalby, was designed by prominent Queensland architects, Hall and Phillips Architects, and represents the Dalby municipality’s confidence in the future.[1] The building is a surviving example of the substantial growth and development of the town and surrounding region in the 1930s; primarily due to the reclamation of prickly-pear-infested land through biological control with the Cactoblastis moth.[2] Incorporating Art Deco features, the masonry building makes an important civic contribution to the streetscape of Dalby’s main thoroughfare. It has a special association with the people of Dalby and district as a public facility for social and community activities.
\nThe town of Dalby developed on the site of a crossing over Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River. Henry Dennis, seeking grazing land for his employer, Charles Coxon, camped at the crossing site in 1841 soon after European occupation of the Darling Downs commenced.[3] A small settlement grew around 'the Crossing' and after several approaches to the New South Wales government by residents in 1852, surveyor, EO Moriaty, was instructed to set out a township of one square mile at Myall Creek.[4] Due to a mistake in the flood levels however, Captain Perry, Assistant Surveyor General, was sent in 1853 to resurvey the site for urban settlement. The nucleus of the township was laid out on a grid plan according to the regulations adopted by Governor Darling for the Colony of New South Wales, and Captain Perry renamed the town 'Dalby'.[5]
\nThe first official land sales in Dalby occurred in April 1857, and in August 1863, Dalby was proclaimed a municipality by Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland. The new municipality elected a Town Council of six that was led by Mayor Frederick Roche.[6] Dalby's first town hall with council offices was constructed on a reserve in Scarlett Street, south of Myall Creek and land for a School of Arts reserved in the same area.[7]
\nIn 1889 the Town Council building was destroyed by fire, prompting the council to move its offices to a site north of Myall Creek — an area that was becoming popular with local businesses. Located between a Commercial Bank building and the Dalby Post Office, the new council building faced the main thoroughfare of Cunningham Street and remained in this small timber building until it was destroyed by fire in 1909.[8] The council then relocated to a new timber building in Marble Street, which served a dual-purpose of Council Chambers and town clerk's residence.[9]
\nThe School of Arts had also moved north of Myall Creek, to a corner site addressing Stuart and Cunningham streets. When it was decided in 1917 the School of Arts would amalgamate with Dalby Town Council, the School of Arts site was transferred to the council.[10]
\nDalby grew significantly between 1926 and 1939 due to the reclamation of prickly pear land through the Cactoblastis moth biological control. Queensland-wide, 22 million acres of land, previously infested with prickly pear, was selected for settlement by 1941; allowing cotton, maize, wheat and other crops to be successfully grown, and dairy and wool production to increase.[11] As a result, the populations of the regional centres of Dalby, Chinchilla and Goondiwindi expanded, stimulating residential growth and significant expenditure on new buildings in the towns. For Dalby, this expenditure amounted to £200,000.[12] During the 1930s a number of civic buildings were constructed in Dalby including the Wambo Shire Council building, Dalby Fire Station [QHR602754], Dalby Courthouse and Police station, Dalby Swimming Pool Complex [QHR602564], Star Theatre and Union Bank building.[13]
\nAfter a fire destroyed the School of Arts building in August 1930, Dalby Town Council relocated their chambers back to Dalby’s main thoroughfare by constructing a new building in conjunction with the School of Arts on the Cunningham and Stuart streets site.[14] During the fire, a timber butcher shop on half of the adjacent, 11 perch (278m2) property was considerably damaged; the block was subsequently subdivided in 1931and the title for the northeastern, 5 ½ perch (139m2) half was transferred to Dalby Town Council by a Warrant of Execution.[15] Under the ownership of the council, the timber butcher shop was replaced between 1930 and 1932 by a new brick butcher shop that featured a tall parapet and a corrugated metal-clad, skillion awning.[16]
\nThe new Dalby Town Council building, designed by Brisbane architectural firm, Hall and Phillips, accommodated the Town Council Chambers at the front, facing northwest to Cunningham Street, and the School of Arts at the rear, facing northeast to Stuart Street.[17] Hall and Phillips Architects formed in 1929, when Lionel Blythewood Phillips was admitted into partnership with Thomas Ramsay Hall, formerly of Hall and Prentice (responsible for the design of Brisbane City Hall [QHR 600065] and Tattersall's Club [600093]). Hall and Phillips continued in practice until 1948 and their other projects included The Empire Theatre in Toowoomba [600978], Nambour Town Hall, and shire offices at Gatton, Murweh, Boonah and Monto.[18]
\nAt a meeting of the Dalby Town Council on 3 August 1931, 15 tenders were considered for the construction of the combined Council Chambers and School of Arts, and AE Hill and Brown's tender for £5075 was accepted.[19] Dalby's Town Clerk, Mr Thorley, acted voluntarily as Superintendent of Works.[20] Insurance from the damage to the old School of Arts building helped fund the construction of the new building, with the Dalby Council contributing £4000 to the overall cost of construction.[21]
\nThe Town Council Chambers and School of Arts masonry building was completed by the end of January 1932, at a cost of £5180. The Council Chambers were located centrally in the front portion of the building, with various office spaces to the west and east. As the Council had had problems with fire in the past, the new Chamber Offices included a strong room which housed valuable books and records. At the rear of the building, a library, reading room, committee room and billiard room were provided for the School of Arts.[22] The Cunningham and Stuart streets elevations of the building were centred on projecting porticos with recessed entrances. The crest of the council was featured in low relief within the pediment of the porticos, and ‘DALBY TOWN COUNCIL’ was inscribed above the Cunningham Street entrance. Fluted pilasters stood either side of centre-pivoting windows and decorative, low relief horizontal bands ran across the elevations, both at parapet and window-head height.[23]
\nThe Dalby Town Council and Offices was officially opened on Saturday 13 February by the Hon AE Moore, Premier of Queensland, with the Mayor of Dalby, Alderman Thomas Jack.[24] The following day, the Sunday Mail described the new Council Chambers and School of Arts as a building, ‘unique in architecture… and austere in style,’ [25] and that there was ‘no more up-to-date council building in Queensland or in the country towns of Australia.’ [26]
\nThe Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices building is one of a group of Queensland interwar town halls and shire chambers that are considered fine examples of the influence of modern architectural styles in Queensland townscapes. Incorporating elements of the jazz-influenced Art Deco and the machine-age vision of the Moderne, these buildings were built as expressions of confidence in a bright and modern future. Stylistic elements of Art Deco and the Moderne include decorative treatments like geometrical motifs, decorative vertical banding and a streamlining of the building form.[27] These features are evident in many prominent civic buildings throughout the State including the Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers (former) [QHR 602810], Goondiwindi Civic Centre [QHR 600531], Southport Town Hall [QHR 601649], Murgon Civic Centre [602812] and Gayndah Shire Hall [QHR 602124].[28]
\nIn December 1934, the Dalby Town Council applied to the Treasury for a subsidised loan in order to resume land on the southeastern side of the chambers for the extension of the School of Arts facilities.[29] This application was approved on 4 July 1935 and £1800 was granted to Council for the addition.[30] It was constructed in the same style as the original building and was opened by Premier, EM Hanlon, on 16 November 1935.[31]
\nThe brick butcher shop building on the adjacent property was converted into offices for council use between 1951 and 1958; and at some point in the period between 1951 and 1962, the front skillion awning was replaced with a flat-profiled suspended awning. A photo shows the brick building occupied in 1962 as an office space for the Council’s ‘Accounts and Enquiries’.[32] Other alterations to the building over time include: the enlargement of window and door openings, removal of the recessed entryway, and addition of tile-cladding to the Cunningham Street elevation; as well as an addition of concrete capping and tile-cladding to the previously facebrick parapet. In 2015, the interior finishes of the building are no longer intact, and comprise a singular open space, concrete slab floor, flat plaster walls and a suspended ceiling.[33]
\nThe Dalby Town Council Chambers and former butcher shop building were vacated in the 1980s after new offices for the Dalby Town Council were constructed on a different site. The chambers have since been occupied by the Queensland Department of Education, the Darling Downs Northern School Support Centre, the Dalby Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a bank.[34]
\nOpenings along the southwestern elevation of the Council Chambers were enclosed in 2013, in order to form a firewall between the chambers and adjacent building.[35]
\nIn 2015, although the building is no longer used for the seat of local government, the interior of the former Council Chamber is still exceptionally intact; retaining its early stained-dark timber wall panelling and architraves, as well as its early layout. The interior of the former School of Arts at the rear of the building has been modified and is now fitted with modern floor linings and recent office partitions.[36]
\nReferences
\n[1] Sunday Mail (SM), 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[2] Alan Dodd, ‘The Conquest of Prickly Pear’, RHSQJ, 1945, 3, 5, pp. 359-61.
\n[3] ‘St John’s Anglican Church’ QHR602399.
\n[4] University of Queensland, ‘Dalby’, 2015,<http://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/dalby>, accessed March 2015; Clem Llewellyn Lack, ‘Dalby: a city built on wheat: centenary souvenir history of municipality’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 7, 1, 1963, p. 198.
\n[5] The Queenslander (TQ), 28 September 1938, pp. 4-5.
\n[6] GH Wade, ‘From swamp to city…1863-1963: The Story of Dalby’, Dalby Town Council, Dalby, 1963, pp. 50, 55.
\n[7] Wade, ‘From swamp to city’, p. 50.
\n[8] TQ, 28 September 1938, pp. 4-5, 9; Wade, ‘From swamp to city’, p. 50; Tony Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing: a history of Dalby and district’, Dalby Town Council, Dalby, 1988, p41; Brisbane Courier (BC), 22 January 1909, p. 5.
\n[9] Wade, ‘From Swamp to City’, p. 50; BC, 22 January 1909, p. 5; Warwick Examiner and Times, 23 January 1909, p. 8; Townsville Daily Bulletin, 22 January 1909, p. 5; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 22 January 1909, p. 2; John Oxley Library (JOL), ‘Dalby-Buildings-Dalby Town Council Chambers’, Image 12312, c1923.
\n[10] The title for the School of Arts site was transferred to Dalby Town Council on 24 May 1917.
\nEddie Clarke, ‘Technical further education in Queensland: a history 1860-1990’, Educational History Unit, Department of Education Queensland and Bureau of Employment, Vocational and Further Education and Training Queensland, Brisbane, 1992, p. 5; Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p70; BC, 23 June 1917, p. 7; Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM), ‘Certificate of Title: 10200028’.
\n[11] Dodd, ‘Conquest of prickly-pear’, pp. 359-61.
\n[12] Dodd, ‘Conquest of prickly-pear’, p. 361.
\n[13] ‘Dalby Fire Station’ QHR602754; ‘Dalby Swimming Pool Complex’ QHR602564.
\n[14] Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p. 70; BC, 24 July 1931, p. 5.
\n[15] DNRM, ‘Certificate of Title: 10156105’; DNRM, ‘Certificate of Title: 11841111’; DNRM, ‘Survey Plan: RP48991’; BC, 23 August 1930, p. 17; Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 8 August 1931, p. 7.
\n[16] ‘Building’, 12 April 1932, p. 78; JOL, ‘Dalby-Buildings- School of Arts’, Image 12313, c1930; Western Downs Regional Council Library Image Collection (WDRC Library), ‘Image 53’; TQ, 25 February 1932, p. 20; TQ, 25 May 1933, p. 24.
\n[17] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[18] ‘Gayndah Shire Hall’ QHR602124; ‘Tattersall's Club’ 600093; ‘Empire Theatre (former)’ 600978.
\n[19] BC, 8 August 1931, p. 16; Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p. 70.
\n[20] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[21] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[22] ‘Building’, 12 April 1932, pp. 78-9.
\n[23] TQ, 25 February 1932, p. 20.
\n[24] BC, 27 January 1932, p. 14; SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6; BC, 16 February 1932, p14; TQ, 25 February 1932, p20; BC, 17 February 1932, p. 14.
\n[25] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[26] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[27] R Apperly, R Irving and P Reynolds, ‘A pictorial guide to identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and terms from 1788 to the present’, Angus and Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1994, pp. 188-191; ‘Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers’ QHR602810; ‘Murgon Civic Centre’ QHR602812.
\n[28] ‘Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers’ QHR602810; ‘Murgon Civic Centre’ QHR602812; ‘Goondiwindi Civic Centre’ QHR600531; ‘Southport Town Hall’ QHR601649; ‘Gayndah Shire Hall’ QHR602124.
\n[29] CM, 28 December 1934, p. 4.
\n[30] CM, 5 July 1935, p. 18.
\n[31] CM, 16 November 1935, p. 15.
\n[32] JOL, ‘Dalby-Buildings- Dalby Town Council Chambers’, 1951; CM, 9 December 1954, p23; Brian Harris, personal communication, 18 February 2015; WDRC Library, ‘Council_32’, 16 April 1962.
\n[33] Applicant-supplied images, 2015.
\n[34] Thom Blake, ‘Dalby Council Chambers Heritage Impact Report’, 20 August 2013, pp. 3-4.
\n[35] Blake, ‘DCC Heritage Impact Report’, pp. 1-7.
\n[36] Blake, ‘DCC Heritage Impact Report’, p. 3; REA Group, ‘Unit 2b, 133 Cunningham Street, Dalby’, 2015,<http://www.realcommercial.com.au/property-offices-qld-dalby-501179467>, accessed March 2015.
\n\n
","criteria":"
The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant as it demonstrates the growth and development of Dalby and the surrounding area and the increasing self confidence placed in the town by the Council and by the local population.
As the site of the School of Arts prior to the construction of the hall, and with the building housing a School of Arts when constructed, the place demonstrates the continued public use of the property for over 60 years.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers, a brick and concrete rendered building, is significant as one of only about six buildings extant in Dalby dating from the early 1930s. Other buildings include the former Wambo Shire Council Chambers and the Dalby Fire Station, both of which have Georgian elements in their designs and the former Union Bank. Internally, contributing to its significance, the former meeting room of the Dalby Town Council remains highly intact with timber panelling and screening.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant as example of an interwar building with Art Deco elements especially the decorative moulded relief work.
|Located at the corner of Cunningham Street, the unpretentious yet elegant building provides an integral civic contribution to the streetscape.
|Further, it held a long association with the people of Dalby and surrounding areas as a focal point for social, and community functions.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant for its association with the well-known Brisbane architectural firm, Hall and Phillips, in practice from 1929-1948. TR Hall had previously been in partnership with GG Prentice as Hall and Prentice.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16032,"place_ref":601269,"name":"Soldier Statue, Chinchilla","alternate_name":"Chinchilla 'Digger' Statue | Chinchilla WWI Memorial","street_address":"57 Heeney Street","suburb":"CHINCHILLA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-01","description":"The Chinchilla soldier statue is located in the front grounds of the Chinchilla RSL Hall in Heeney Street, close to the building, and facing the street. It is a slightly smaller than life-sized (1.54 m) sandstone statue of an Australian infantryman with slouch hat, standing at ease and resting the butt of his rifle on the ground, supported at the base by a tree stump [as were most soldier statues]. The statue stands on a sandstone block, a remnant of the original pedestal, ornamented on the front face with crossed flags carved in relief. The flags, a British Union Jack and the Australian flag, symbolise the dual nature of Australian patriotism at the time and old photographs show that they were originally painted in red, white and blue. This block in turn rests on another, larger and more recent sandstone block, which has a brass plaque on the front face, with the inscription: 'Renovated & Relocated by the RSL Women's Auxiliary 1992'. The whole rests on a ground-level concrete foundation, and is surrounded by a modern metal fence (not considered of cultural heritage significance). A shade structure has been erected over it, which also is not of cultural heritage significance. Two metal flag poles are bolted to the outer rear corners of the concrete foundation. Unfortunately, the statue has been painted in semi-realistic colours, which was not the original intention, and the hands and rifle have been replaced following earlier vandalism.
\nThe Chinchilla statue is typical of the soldier statues supplied by the firm of AL Petrie throughout Queensland, which depict ordinary Australian infantrymen standing either at ease or attention, or in mourning with arms reversed. The former, as chosen by Chinchilla, was generally used if the memorial bore the names of all who served from a community whereas a figure in mourning was preferred if the memorial bore only the names of the dead. The original pedestal, the 'Coomera' type, was crowned by urns (a symbol of death) on all four corners and had corner pilasters with acanthus leaf capitals. It was similar to the pedestals supplied by Petrie's for the war memorials at Upper Coomera (the earliest, in 1918, Gold Coast City Council Local Heritage Register 0073), Cordalba, Moggill, Tingalpa, Kandanga, Gin Gin, Tewantin, Cooroy and Herberton (QHR 600541).
","history":"The Chinchilla soldier statue was erected as part of the Chinchilla War Memorial, unveiled on 30 January 1919 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, GCMG, CB. The memorial was designed and executed by the well-known monumental masonry firm of AL Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane. In 1977 the statue was removed from its original position and separated from its pedestal and base. Part of the pedestal was re-erected in Fuller Place in Heeney Street in 1979, surmounted by a spire; while the statue was kept in storage until re-erected in front of the Returned Services League of Australia (RSL) hall further south on Heeney Street in 1992.
The Chinchilla district, on the northern Darling Downs, had been opened to non-indigenous settlement following explorer FW Ludwig Leichhardt's journey through this area in late 1844. Pastoral runs (both sheep and cattle) were taken up in the second half of the 1840s, including Matthew Goggs' Chinchilla run (by 1848). At Charley's Creek, on the main dray route from Toowoomba to western Queensland, teamsters regularly camped, and by late 1876 a small township of three hotels, three stores and two butcher shops had been established there. With the Western Railway extension from Dalby to Dulacca constructed in the 1870s, the Chinchilla Railway Station opened at Charley's Creek in January 1878, and remained the railhead until August that year. The town of Chinchilla was surveyed around the railway station in late 1880/early 1881, and in the last two decades of the 19th century, developed as a railway locomotive depot (mid-way on the Toowoomba-Roma run), and as a service centre to surrounding pastoral properties. In the early years of the 20th century, the town's progress was retarded by the spread of prickly pear throughout the district, and by devastating fires which destroyed many of the commercial buildings in Chinchilla Street (then the main street, occurred in 1917, 1920 and 1922 [one side of Chinchilla Street destroyed]). Rapid eradication of the pear following the introduction of cactoblastis larvae in the mid-1920s opened the area to closer settlement, and during the 1930s Chinchilla prospered as a district centre, despite worldwide economic depression.
As early as 1915, residents of Chinchilla formed a committee to raise funds for a memorial to the soldiers and a nurse from Chinchilla Shire serving or having given their lives in World War I (1914-18). At the time, war memorials were becoming a feature of the Australian landscape, recording the devastating impact of war on a young nation. By the war's end, some 60,000 Australians had lost their lives from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. By 1925 most communities across the nation had a war memorial, a visible expression of grief that cut across class, ethnic and other divisions of Australian society. To those that erected them, war memorials were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
For their war memorial, the Chinchilla residents chose a monument to be supplied by the leading monumental masonry firm of AL Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane. The firm was responsible for many of Queensland's war memorials, distributing them via the railways and a network of country agents. Petrie's offered a range of memorial types, the most common being a soldier statue standing on a sandstone pedestal which bore a series of marble plates with leaded inscriptions and names; this in turn resting on a granite base - as was commissioned for Chinchilla. The cost of such a memorial averaged about £300.
Originally the Chinchilla War Memorial occupied a prominent position in the townscape, in a small memorial park in Chinchilla Street, near the footbridge over the railway line. In the early 1920s the Chinchilla branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association (established 1922), became involved in the landscaping of the park. A 1935 photograph shows a garden with four paths bordered by low bushes, leading to the war memorial, which provided the central focus to the park. Palm trees, trellises and a white picket fence and gate contributed to the park aesthetics. In 1952 nearly half of the memorial park was resumed for road purposes.
By the 1970s the town centre had shifted from Chinchilla Street to Heeney Street, south of the railway line, hence in 1977 the war memorial was also relocated. The pedestal, refurbished by the Toowoomba firm of Zeigler's and incorporating the original marble plates but not its four urns, was erected at Fuller Place in Heeney Street, in front of the Chinchilla Civic Centre where it was re-dedicated on 17 March 1979. The new structure was crowned by an aluminium obelisk while the soldier statue, which had been vandalised, was stored at the local museum. In 1992 the Women's Auxiliary of the Chinchilla Sub-Branch of the Returned Services League of Australia raised funds for the restoration of the statue and its relocation to the front grounds of the RSL Sub Branch Hall in Heeney Street, on the opposite side of the road and about a block south from Fuller Place and the official Chinchilla War Memorial.
The Chinchilla statue remains one of an important group of 55 surviving soldier statues, of the 61 erected throughout Queensland during or soon after World War I.
","criteria":"The Chinchilla Soldier Statue, erected in 1919 as part of the local community's memorial to World War I and funded by public subscription, no longer retains its physical association with the official memorial, however it still serves as a reminder of the contribution of the Chinchilla district to the war effort. It has acquired, in its relocation, a more recent association with the local branch of the Returned Services League of Australia.
The statue, now located just outside the local RSL Hall, surrounded by a metal fence, lacking its original pedestal and base - and consequently its associated inscriptions and name plates - and repaired and painted, has lost its landmark and documentary value, and also much of its aesthetic and symbolic value. However, it is one of an important group of soldier statues erected throughout Queensland during or soon after World War I, these being the state's most popular type of war monument.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16036,"place_ref":601273,"name":"Cactoblastis Memorial Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Warrego Highway","suburb":"BOONARGA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-09-21","description":"A single-storeyed timber building set on low timber stumps with a pitched galvanised corrugated iron roof the Cactoblastis Hall is situated on the southwestern side of the Warrego Highway 12 kilometres southeast of Chinchilla. Set back about 35m from the highway the building, approximately square in plan, consists of a central dance room with adjoining aisles on the southeastern and northwestern sides. The dance room has a simple gable roof which changes pitch to form shallower skillion roofs over the aisles.
The building is clad in weatherboards and has timber doors and a variety of windows, the originals being double hung sashes. Most of the more recent openings are fitted with glass or metal louvres. On the rear elevation is a junction in the weatherboards indicating the later addition of the southeastern aisle. Windows and possibly some of the weatherboards from the earlier southeastern wall have been reused in the addition.
The main entry doors, located in the centre of the front facade, are protected by a timber-framed gable-roofed porch with a weatherboard balustrade. A ramp has been added to the southeastern side of the porch. Above the doors, below the ridge of the roof, is hung a large sign bearing the name of the town, the hall and the date of construction which replaced the original sign. A sign to the east of these doors acknowledges the hall as a venue for meetings of the Queensland Country Womens' Association. Double hung sash windows flank these timber panelled double doors.
On the northwestern side of the front facade double timber doors under a slender steel framed flat roofed porch have replaced a double hung sash window. Timber doors are also located on the side and rear facades.
The central space has an unlined roof, a timber dance floor, recently renewed, and a stage which is located at the southwestern end. A steel truss has replaced the original partition walls and swing doors between the dance room and the northwestern aisle. A large opening between the supper room in the southeastern aisle and the dance room is infilled with lattice. The ticket office is located in the northern corner, a kitchen in the eastern corner and toilets in the western corner of the building.
","history":"This timber hall was completed in 1936 at Boonarga, a small settlement approximately 12 kilometres southeast of Chinchilla. The hall was erected as a monument to the Cactoblastis moth which overcame prickly pear in Queensland and New South Wales during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The appearance of prickly pear in Queensland has been attributed to a small number of prickly pear plants brought to Queensland c1843 as garden plants. By 1862 prickly pear was growing in the Chinchilla district and spread rapidly in areas where land holdings were extensive and population relatively low.
Prickly pear was declared a noxious weed in Queensland in 1893. By 1900 approximately 10 000 000 acres were affected by prickly pear; an area which had extended to an estimated 58 000 000 acres by 1920. About half of this area was so densely covered by prickly pear that the land was useless for production. The costs of mechanical and chemical methods of eradication exceeded the value of the land and therefore did not prove economically viable for controlling the spread of prickly pear.
By the 1920s investigations into the methods of biological control of prickly pear were well established. These investigations were regarded as "a great experiment in scientific research"; an experiment which was considered almost unique at this time. The progress of these investigations was followed by the international scientific community.
In 1925, 3000 Cactoblastis eggs were imported from South America. These eggs were divided between the Sherwood laboratory, and the Chinchilla Field Station which had been established in 1923 as one of four Queensland field stations responsible for rearing and distributing insect supplies. The first prickly pear plant was destroyed by the Cactoblastis moth at Chinchilla in September 1926. The last extensive area of prickly pear in Queensland was destroyed in 1933, and the Chinchilla Field Station was closed at the end of 1936.
The Chinchilla district was one of many areas which experienced renewed prosperity as land cleared of prickly pear was utilised for agriculture and dairying pursuits.
Proposals to erect a hall at Boonarga were first discussed in July 1934, at which time a public meeting was held and a Hall Committee appointed. Land for the proposed hall was donated by Mrs Fahey, a resident of Boonarga. In October 1934 the Committee decided to name the hall the Boonarga Cactoblastis Memorial Hall in honour of the Cactoblastis moth. Finance for the hall was arranged through the Bank of New South Wales in Chinchilla with a number of Boonarga residents acting as guarantors.
Tenders for the erection of the hall were called by the Committee in June 1935. Although a tender was recommended for acceptance, tenders were reinvited in July 1935. The hall was built by local builder Mr Jack Schloss, at a cost of £435 and opened in February 1936 by Godfrey Morgan MLA. A gala ball was held to mark the occasion.
Alterations to the hall in 1963 included the addition of the second aisle on the southeastern side of the hall. A new dance floor was laid c1985. The hall is presently used as a venue for dances, meetings and other functions.
","criteria":"As a hall erected to commemorate a significant scientific and economic event [the successful control of prickly pear by the cactoblastis moth], the Cactoblastis Memorial Hall at Boonarga is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history.
|It demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as the only known building dedicated to an insect.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a timber hall built to service a small rural community.
|As a hall in continuous use since 1936, the place has a strong and special association with the Boonarga community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19535,"place_ref":602415,"name":"Jimbour Dry Stone Wall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"off Dalby-Jandowae Road","suburb":"JIMBOUR","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is located on the Jimbour Ridge, a low, open, grassy but stony ridge to the north of Jimbour House and is constructed of scattered volcanic rocks taken from this ridge. Its construction type is a random double wall, being two outer skins (walls) of irregularly shaped stones, not laid in courses, which taper inwards. The space between has been filled with smaller stone rubble.
The wall extends an approximate length of 6.5 kilometres (4 miles). Some sections remain in an original state and stand to an approximate height of 1.5 metres (5 feet). Other sections have collapsed to the foundation stones and the first layers of building stones and stand to a height between 50 and 70 centimetres.
In these deteriorated sections of the wall sapling posts or (in a small section) steel posts have been inserted to support wire mesh and barbed wire. These posts appear to have been inserted by removing the outer facing stones of one side of the wall, placing the posts in position, then replacing the outer stones to secure the posts.
","history":"The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is located on a low, stony ridge to the north of Jimbour House, the former head station on the once expansive Jimbour pastoral run on the Darling Downs. The wall was constructed most likely during the 1870s, apparently as a barrier to prevent sheep from crossing the stony ridge, to keep dingoes from preying on the sheep and to prevent wallabies from destroying crops planted in paddocks close to the head station.
Dry stone walling is an ancient craft using stone with no mortar to construct a wall. It gained popularity in Britain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the enclosure movement and the practice was introduced to Australia during the mid-1800s. Traditionally each dry stone wall was constructed by laying two parallel outer walls of stones, which tapered inwards towards the top; filling the space between with smaller stones and rubble; then laying coping stones across the top to complete the wall. Dry stone walls were labour intensive to construct and repair, but in areas where stone was readily available, for early land owners they could prove economical and more durable than timber fences, requiring less maintenance and being fireproof. For European settlers the walls also transformed the landscape into something that resembled their native homes, a process that has been described by one scholar as 'colonisation by mimesis' - 'a type of ground clearing that instituted one type of memorialisation over another'.
In 1863/64 Messrs Bell & Sons, the pastoral lessees of Jimbour run, applied under right of pre-emptive purchase for the freehold of nine portions of land along Jimbour Creek and around Jimbour head station. Pre-emptive portion one included the eastern end of the Jimbour Ridge. The survey plan (D35119) on which this application was based and dated 2 January 1864, shows a number of timber fences across the property, but not a stone wall (or any type of fence) along the Jimbour Ridge. Certificate of title to these portions was granted to Messrs Bell & Sons in 1864.
With security of tenure, the Bells made extensive improvements on the Jimbour freehold during the 1870s. Stately Jimbour House, Queensland's grandest 19th century homestead, was erected 1874-77 and the dry stone wall was constructed likely around the same time, in a period when the station reached its peak as a 19th-century pastoral enterprise.
Following the extensive restoration of Jimbour House in 1925, the Queenslander newspaper printed a story about the property to celebrate the formal re-opening of the house. The article, written from notes by Harry Ensor, Joshua Peter Bell's overseerer, 'right hand man' and building supervisor at Jimbour during the 1870s, records that the first plan was to build a log fence on the Jimbour Ridge, but the idea was abandoned due to the abundance of available stone. Instead, a dry stone wall was built for a length of about 4 miles (6.5 kilometres). This wall was about 5 feet (1.5 metres) high, 2 feet 6 inches (75 centimetres) wide at the base and 18 inches (45 centimetres) wide at the top. Dubbed the 'Great Wall of Jimbour', its construction proved to be a feat of human perseverance. The stony ground of the ridge meant that bullocks needed to be continuously shod and the workmen were forced to lace greenhide to their boots. The difficult terrain and extent of the wall would have made it a time-consuming task. Ensor recalled that the work gang leader, who first thought of the idea and supervised construction of the wall, became affectionately known as 'Stonewall Jackson'.
Ensor also claimed that the dry stone wall was built to divide the Jimbour run. It is not clear what is meant by this comment. An 1877 survey plan (A3441005 drawn by surveyor Martin Lavelle) of further Jimbour pre-emptive purchases shows the dry stone wall extending the length of a stony ridge (the Jimbour Ridge) to the north east of the station residence. By this time it appears the wall had been in place for several years, with the surveyor noting that the wall was in 'a bad state being full of grass'. However, the wall was not used as a boundary for any of the portions surveyed.
It seems more plausible that the wall was constructed as a barrier fence. Jimbour in the 1870s was a large sheep station still employing shepherds to manage the flocks. The stony ground of the ridge on which the wall was built would have been difficult to patrol on foot and Harry Ensor recollected how the 'grass was on many occasions higher than the sheep' making it difficult to shepherd them. The stone wall was constructed to the traditional height required to enclose sheep and it seems likely the purpose of the wall was to prevent flocks wandering over the grassy ridge at a time when Jimbour suffered from a dingo problem.
The stone wall may also have served a supplementary purpose of keeping wallabies away from the plains adjacent to the head station where blue grass and wild oats grew. In the late 19th century wallabies were a persistent problem for land owners on the Darling Downs, who were forced to erect fences in an effort to control their movements. An 1874 Brisbane Courier report on Darling Downs selections around Jandowae noted 'thousands of wallabies' had become pests in the region and that fences were being constructed 'for the sole purpose of shutting in these little grass devourers' . At Jimbour, wallabies were no less of a problem. In 1882 the Land Commissioner for the Darling Downs reported to the Lands Department that portions of Jimbour were 'rendered almost useless by reason of being overrun with wallaby'.
With the repurchase of Jimbour in the early 20th century and subsequent 1909 subdivision of land either side of the Jimbour Ridge for closer agricultural settlement, the dry stone wall was used as the approximate demarcation line for subdivisions north and south of the wall. The 1909 surveys cross and re-cross the wall many times, but the survey lines mostly follow within a few metres of the stone wall. Despite sections of the wall being today in a state of collapse where wallabies have created trails over the wall, other sections remain in a relatively well-preserved state and stand as a testimony to the skills and tenacity of early pastoral workers in Queensland.
","criteria":"The dry stone wall at Jimbour was most likely constructed in the 1870s as a barrier fence, at a period when Jimbour Station was one of Queensland's largest pastoral enterprises. It is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history insofar as it provides evidence of traditional European technology used by early settlers in controlling, shaping and adapting to the Queensland landscape.
|Dry stone walls of this size and extent are scarce in Queensland and the Jimbour Dry Stone Wall provides a relatively well-preserved example of a rare, uncommon or endangered aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|It stands as a testimony to the tenacity and skills of early pastoral workers and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a traditional form of wall construction, dry stone walling, transplanted to Queensland in the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31791,"place_ref":602761,"name":"St Columba's Convent (former)","alternate_name":"Iona | St Columbas Catholic Convent (former)","street_address":"169 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-12-09","description":"St Columba's Convent (former) occupies a corner block in the south-western part of Dalby, 80 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs. Addressing Cunningham Street to the north-west and Edward Street to the south-west, the two storey brick and timber building has a commanding presence on the street. Opposite it along Cunningham Street are the Dalby Ambulance Station and several residences; whilst further to the north-east are St Joseph's Catholic Church and the adjacent Presbytery (not original). The flat allotment covers approximately 2.7 hectares, with the proposed heritage boundary encompassing only its north-western part.
The former convent's plan is H-shaped with a south-western wing extended further to the rear than the north-eastern one. The two storey building stands on concrete footings with various brick piers and timber stumps supporting the verandahs; its core made from reddish bricks laid in English bond, with white render bands at sill and head height decorating the main façade. The brick lintels over the windows and external doors are arched, with either two or three rowlock courses. Throughout the building extensive cracking in the masonry walls is visible both on the exterior and interior.
Some of the building's timber verandahs were originally enclosed with weatherboarding, while others have been more recently enclosed with flat sheeting or chamferboards. Original timber verandah decoration, including stop chamfered posts, decorative post capitals and brackets, and solid timber valances, remains in many parts of the building, particularly on the façade addressing Cunningham Street. The ground floor verandah ceilings are lined with ripple iron sheeting, whilst those on the first floor are raked and have v-jointed timber board linings. Areas of unenclosed verandah have exposed timber floors. An early timber tank stand remains at the rear of the north-eastern wing.
Original timber doors are either single-leaf or French with rectangular fanlights. The former are low-waisted with four solid panels, while the latter are low-waisted with single solid panels at the bottom and two rectangular panes divided by a narrow glazing bar at the top. Some doors appear to have been relocated within the building.
The main roof, clad in corrugated iron sheeting, consists of two parallel long gables over the north-eastern and south-western wings connected by another gabled section over the central building range. The gable ends are decorated with moulded bargeboards and partial timber batten infill. The roofs over the verandahs are broken-backed. Two brick chimneys, painted white, are located above the inner face of the south-western wing, and several metal vents pierce the roof ridges. Celtic crosses adorn the ends of the main gables.
The Cunningham Street façade is largely symmetrical, with a central portico formed in timber and verandahs running behind it between the brick walls of the two main gabled wings. The verandahs here have original cast iron balustrades, painted white, set into timber top and bottom rails. The portico is supported on double posts and topped by a pediment with ornamentation forming a gothic pointed arch. The western gable end has three lancet windows on each floor, with pink and green patterned glass; while the eastern gable end is slightly narrower, with two lancet windows on the upper floor and a projecting bay on the ground with three lancet windows (one filled with sheeting). It has a corrugated iron gable roof and timber gable ornamentation. Under the adjacent verandah a sacristy is formed in brick with lancet windows.
The north-eastern façade retains many of its open verandah areas. A recent timber staircase provides access to the first floor verandah, the southern end of which is clad in weatherboards. At the northern end of this floor the first two bays of the verandah are enclosed with chamferboards and banks of louvered windows. On the south-western façade only a small portion of the ground floor verandah remains unenclosed. A double storey brick section with three original windows divides the façade and houses an original internal staircase. Various window types feature including three-light casements, aluminium sliders and louvers.
The rear façade is dominated by the two projecting wings forming a courtyard. The areas of enclosed verandah are variously clad in weatherboards or chamferboards. A multitude of window types feature, including original timber-framed double-hung sashes, four-light timber casements, and aluminium-framed sliders. There is an original external timber staircase in the verandah area of the central building range. The brick gable ends of both wings feature small ventilation openings.
The interior fabric of the building is largely intact. Unless noted, all internal ceilings are lined with pressed metal, in a variety of patterns, including ceiling roses and cornices, although modern fluorescent lights and ceiling fans have often been fitted over the roses. All interior masonry walls are plastered and painted; and most rooms and corridors have a timber picture rail positioned either in line with the top of the fanlights or just below ceiling level (rooms without picture rails include the former nuns' cells and the kitchen). Wide timber skirtings line the base of most walls, and timber floors are largely carpeted.
The ground floor layout of the former St Columba's Convent remains substantially intact, with only one interior wall removed (in the kitchen). Entry is from Cunningham Street, off the verandah and into a small lobby with reception rooms either side. The elaborate front door is timber-framed and set into an arched opening; with patterned glass lights (green, red and yellow) surrounding the central, low-waisted double door. Some original door hardware remains. On the far side of the entrance lobby is an elaborate doorway into the central corridor. Topped by an open timber-framed fanlight containing the top of a pointed arch and two timber quatrefoils, the doorway has two fixed and two opening leafs, each glazed with five arctic glass lights.
Beyond this a central hallway runs parallel to the main façade, linking the north-eastern and south-western wings. This has a carpeted floor and stop-chamfered edges around openings. Rooms on the southern side of the corridor are the former nun's refectory, a small office (formerly work room) and the main staircase. This features a polished silky oak balustrade. At the south-western end of the former nun's refectory is a fireplace with a carved silky oak mantelpiece. The north-eastern wing houses the chapel, with adjacent brick sacristy. The sanctuary is located in the bay projection at the northern end, separated from the main space by an arched opening and two steps. The stained glass of the sanctuary features flowers and symbols such as alpha and omega, whilst all other windows contain leadlighting in various shades of green. A door leads into the small sacristy and the one connecting to the central corridor has a flashed glass border. The Stations of the Cross are in timber frames surmounted by a small cross.
The south-western wing contains two large rooms at the northern end, with original bi-fold timber doors made of eight panels, approximately 2.7 metres high, dividing the former boarder's study from the refectory. At the southern end is a kitchen, with an adjacent cold room and pantry inserted where the music rooms were. The kitchen is recently fitted out; however an original stove alcove remains. The floor is covered with linoleum. These rooms contain original doors, windows, timber-lined walls and a corridor leading to the western verandah. The amenities area on the eastern side of the enclosed verandah contains some original fabric, such as doors and board lined walls. The brick enclosed staircase in the north-western corner of this wing has a simple, painted timber balustrade, carpeted stairs and pressed metal on the underside of the upper landing.
On the first floor, the core of the former convent on either side of the central corridor consists of six small rooms, formerly nun's cells, and a large room (former infirmary) currently divided in two. Five of the cells run along the northern side of the corridor, with the sixth adjacent to the main staircase. The enclosed verandah to the rear of these rooms contains a kitchen, dining area and bathroom. The timber floor here is lined with linoleum and the exterior brick walls are unpainted. The north-eastern wing houses a meeting room at the front of the building, three former nun's cells and amenities at the southern end. The south-western wing was formerly a single long dormitory room but is now divided into five rooms by plasterboard-lined partitions and areas of ceiling. The original coved ceiling runs the entire length of the former dormitory and is visible in three of the five rooms, with low plasterboard ceilings in two of the rooms. The former boarder amenities are located in the verandah at the southern end of this wing. Rooms here, which include a large amenities room, retain some original doors, windows and board-lined walls and ceiling. Floors have been lined with linoleum and modern bathroom fixtures installed.
In the former nuns cells there are sections of likely recent wallpaper remaining on the walls. A fireplace with timber mantelpiece identical to the one on the ground floor features in the largest room. The rear external staircase has been enclosed on this level. The meeting room at the front of the north-east wing has two filled doorways on the north-east wall. The three former nun's cells are divided from each other and from the corridor by timber walls lined with vertically-jointed, tongue and groove boards. They each have a recent double door opening on to the north-east verandah. The amenities and store room at the southern end of this wing have recent fixtures and linings.
Though largely open lawn, a variety of trees and shrubs are planted along the edges of the St Columba's property and throughout its grounds. Some mature trees as remnants of early planting schemes are significance, such as several mature bottle trees (Brachychiton rupestris) in the front and north-east lawn areas. There is an informal parking area at the rear of the building. The main feature of the front fence is a gateway marked by two original brick pillars. Two later brick pillars flanking the original gateway are not of significance, neither are the garden beds laid out in front of the building, edged in orange brick and arranged around a central circular garden feature.
Other features not considered to be of significance are a small fenced enclosure at the rear, south-west side of the building and a small garage and carport near the south-east corner. Near the north-east boundary is a brick pavilion, housing a crucifix statue on a raised platform. It has a gabled, tiled roof and round arches spanning between the corner pillars, some of which are topped by a small cross. Larger crosses sit at the gable peaks and the flat ceiling is lined with pressed metal. On the north-east side of the building, near the sacristy, is a grotto made from stone with a garden in the centre. A statue of the Virgin Mary stands in an alcove in the rear wall and a marble plaque, dedicated to a Sister Mary Agatha who apparently died in 1917, is attached to a sandstone block. The pavilion and grotto are both considered to be significant.
A brass plaque in the front garden area commemorates 113 years of the Sisters of Mercy in Dalby. A marble plaque is attached to the northern corner of the main façade commemorating the laying of the foundation stone but is unlikely to be original. Next to the main door is a large brass plaque, commemorating the blessing and reopening of the building as St Joseph's Parish Hostel in 1991.
","history":"The former St Columba's Convent was built in 1913 for the Sisters of Mercy from a design by local architect George Bernard Roskell, to provide accommodation for the nuns and the boarding students in their care. At that time, the town of Dalby and its surrounding rural districts were experiencing economic growth. The Sisters of Mercy occupied the convent until 1990, after which it was purchased by the Dalby parish and used as a student hostel, before being leased as a youth and community centre.
Dalby evolved as part of the expansion of one of the most significant pastoral regions in Queensland, the Darling Downs. The township was first laid out by Surveyor EO Moriaty in 1852. Due to an error in flood levels, Captain Perry, the Deputy Surveyor General of NSW resurveyed the township in 1853, naming it Dalby after a location on the Isle of Man. The Town Reserve was declared in the New South Wales Government Gazette in August 1855. Dalby soon had a range of government services, including a post office in August 1854, the declaration of the Dalby Police District in 1855, and the establishment of a National School in 1859. The first urban land sales were held in 1857 and the town gazetted as a municipality on 29 August 1863. The extension of the western railway line from Toowoomba to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom in the town which only diminished when the line was extended further west in 1877.
At the time of the appointment of James Quinn as the first Bishop of Brisbane in 1861, the population of the Colony of Queensland was 30,059, of whom 7,696 (39%) were Catholics. The proportion of Catholics in the main towns of the Darling Downs was: 18% in Warwick, 22% in Toowoomba, 28% in Dalby and 32% in Drayton. Initially Catholic pastoral care in Dalby was irregular; visiting priests had to celebrate mass in local hotels like Josiah Milstead's Plough Inn Hotel from 1855. The first Catholic school in Dalby was established in 1864.
Dalby's first Catholic church, St Joseph's was opened by Bishop Quinn in August 1866. In 1876 Quinn instructed Father Denis Byrne, curate of Dalby, to establish a convent in the town, using £400 that the Sisters of Mercy of All Hallows Convent in Brisbane had allocated for the purpose. The Sisters of Mercy, having initially travelled to Queensland with Bishop Quinn in 1860, were integral to the expansion of Catholic schools across the state.
A new commodious version of the Plough Inn Hotel, built in 1863, was sold as part of the estate of pastoralist CC Macdonald. A half share of the property - lots 14, 15 and 16 (originally lots 2, 3, and 4) of section 16 - was transferred to Bishop Quinn in 1876. A small group of Sisters of Mercy arrived in Dalby on 8 August the following year, from the Toowoomba convent established in 1873; and this new Plough Inn became the order's eleventh school in Queensland known as St Columba's. A new timber church designed by Toowoomba architect James Marks was opened in September 1886. By that time, Catholics comprised one third of the population of the Darling Downs.
Dalby's regional prosperity was spurred by a number of legislative processes aimed at rural development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the creation of smaller land holdings and the construction of new railways. The Dalby-to-Bell line opened in 1906, followed by the Tara line in 1908. Dairying and wheat cultivation expanded. A butter factory and a flour mill were established in Dalby in 1906, while the wool industry continued to underpin the rural economy of the area. Despite the dramatic effects of the Federation drought which peaked in 1902, the market for cattle improved in the 1910s, while the price of wool more than doubled between 1900 and 1915.
The growth of the area and the general expansion of the network of boarding schools led to the planning of a new, purpose-built Catholic convent for Dalby. In 1910, 3½ acres (1.4 ha) on the corner of Cunningham and Edward Streets were transferred to the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Rockhampton, James Duhig came in November 1910 to lay the foundation stone of the convent there. In November 1911 local architect George Bernard Roskell called for tenders for its construction. Born in India, Roskell migrated to Sydney in 1881, having previously been articled to EW Pugin in Dublin. (Pugin and his father AW Pugin were responsible for the design of a large number of Gothic Revival ecclesiastical buildings in Britain and Western Europe.) In Sydney, Roskell worked in partnership with John Bede Barlow between 1885 and 1891. (The 1887 Church of St Canice in Rushcutters Bay and the 1889 St Francis of Assisi Church in Paddington, designed by the practice are both on the Sydney Local Heritage Register.) Roskell then went to New Zealand, working for two firms known for their ecclesiastical projects. He relocated to Queensland as an employee of the Department of Public Works in 1907. Living in Dalby from 1909, he worked as clerk of the Dalby Town Council and also ran an architectural practice responsible for the Dalby National Bank (1910), the Dalby Hospital (1914) and the Wambo Shire Council offices (1916).
St Columba's Convent was opened by the recently appointed coadjutor, His Grace Archbishop Duhig on 8 June 1913, the eve of the feast day of St Columba of Iona. (St Columba had been exiled to this island off Scotland in 563 and later established his ministry there.) A crowd of around 500 visitors attended the ceremony. Father Nolan, the Parish Priest indicated that the convent had cost £7,267 and he needed a further £2,600 to clear the debt. A collection was then taken up, which yielded around £1,600. Speakers praised the efforts of the builder, John Draney and the Clerk of Works, Michael Kelly, as well as the fund raising efforts of the ladies committee. It was expected that subsequent fund raising would focus on building a new church and presbytery for Father Nolan. Michael Kelly departed Dalby the following week to take up the position of Clerk of Works for St Brigid's Church at Red Hill (QHR 600284).
The Dalby Herald described the new convent as Gothic in style, standing on a large site, on solid foundations four feet deep, reinforced with rolled joists, bolted together under all the walls of the structure, creating a singular solid frame. Entry to the property was through ornamental iron gates composed of crosses with the name St Columba's Convent emblazoned on them in brass. A gravelled path led to the central main entrance, which had a simple gabled portico again lettered with the name of St Columba's. The front verandah featured sections of cast iron balustrade and all were ten feet wide. Flooring throughout was crows ash.
The convent's entry doors opened to a hall, flanked on each side by reception rooms, with passageways leading to both wings. To the right was a boarders' study which was separated by 9' (2.7 m) high folding doors from a boarders' refectory. Three French doors led to the western verandah, along which were located four music rooms. A nearby staircase led up to the boarders' dormitory. Directly behind the entrance lobby was the nuns' refectory, which included a fireplace and mantle. To the left of the entrance lobby, a grand timber staircase with turned silky oak balustrade ascended to the upper floor. Beyond the staircase was the 63' by 14' (19.2 by 4.3 m) chapel. The sanctuary was lit by arched stained glass windows illuminating the altar. A soft shade of green was used in the glass and in the interior paint scheme. The altar, which no longer remains, was designed and built by Trittons Furniture in Brisbane, donated by Mother Patrick of All Hallows in Brisbane and made as a copy of its altar.
The first floor boarders' dormitory occupied the entire western wing and had 16' (1.8 m) high coved ceilings. A lavatory and bathroom, with enamelled baths and showers adjoined the dormitory at the rear of the building. The dormitory opened onto front, rear and side verandahs. A corridor led from the boarders' dormitory to an infirmary for smaller children, which had a fireplace. Six nuns' cells 12' by 8' (3.6 by 2.4 m), painted in French grey were also located here. The upper floor of the eastern wing housed three more cells and a large community room, the nun's bathrooms and toilets, and linen room. Water was supplied from a bore and from four 2 000 gallon tanks and three smaller rainwater tanks. The convent was one of the earliest buildings in Dalby to have a septic system, the local firm Downs Plumbing and Manufacturing supplying and executing all the plumbing work. Pressed metal ceilings were by Extons.
Ongoing development of Catholic facilities in Dalby included a locally-designed school (1916) to the rear of the convent towards Jimbour Street, and a new church (1921) a block to the north-east on Cunningham Street and an adjacent presbytery (1930), both designed by Sydney architects Hennessey and Hennessey. Also in Cunningham Street, St John's Church of England, designed by Toowoomba architect Harry Marks, opened in 1935 (QHR 602399).
Father Nolan was honoured by the Pope in November 1930 and invested as a Monsignor in St Joseph's Church, when he was praised for the beautiful church buildings erected in Dalby - the convent, church and school. Within the Parish of Dalby, Nolan was responsible for the construction of new churches in Bell (1912), Warra (1913) and Jandowie (1917), Catholic communities which all would have sent children to school in Dalby. In 1930 and 1932 two further churches - at Cecil Plains and Kaimkillenbun respectively - were opened, both under his direction. The well-respected Nolan remained in the parish until his death in 1950. His church building scheme formed part of Duhig's overall program, which produced over 400 buildings in Queensland, including religious, educational and charitable institutions and hospitals.
The chief towns of the Darling Downs - namely Toowoomba, Warwick and Stanthorpe - became, along with Dalby, centres of education with the establishment of a number of day and boarding schools by different Christian denominations. With regards Catholic convents predating St Columba's, of the four built only the Sisters of Mercy Convent of the Assumption built in 1893-94 in Warwick is extant (QHR 600953 - Cloisters). Around the time of the construction of the convent at Dalby, other Christian boarding schools were established in Toowoomba and Warwick but were not overseen by an order of nuns or brothers. These generally remain in operation with early buildings often having become part of co-educational colleges formed through a process of school amalgamation, such as in Warwick where the Presbyterian Ladies College (1918) and Scots College for boys (1919) merged in 1970 and now operate as Scots PCG College over two campuses. A brick and timber convent built in Goondiwindi in 1911 and similar in scale to that at Dalby has been demolished. A number of smaller convents and schools were established on the Downs after 1913, including at Allora, Clifton, Crows Nest, Oakey, Miles, Chinchilla and Yarraman. Of these only the Sisters of the Good Samaritan convents at Clifton (1917) and Yarraman (1946) are known to remain, while a number of the schools continue in operation.
Boarding was phased out at St Columba's during the 1960s, while the school continued to expand on land behind the convent along Jimbour Street. In 1963 St Mary's Christian Brothers College was established in Nicholson Street, near the Dalby airport, to educate boys from grades 5 to 10. St Mary's College became co-educational for grades 8 to 10 in 1980, with St Columba's operating as the co-educational primary school. In October 1990, the Sisters of Mercy departed Dalby, as part of the trend towards co-educational colleges staffed by lay teachers and managed through Diocesan Education Offices. In 1991, the Dalby Parish Finance Committee purchased the convent from the Sisters, upgraded its facilities and established a non-denominational rural student hostel, known as St Joseph's, servicing the regional community. St Columba's school to the rear of the convent was extensively fire damaged in 1998 and the decision made to begin a process of relocation to Nicholson Street. The last of the significant school buildings remaining on the site was moved elsewhere. St Columba's and St Mary's formally merged in 2008 to form Our Lady of the Southern Cross College based at the Nicholson Street campus.
A decline in the Dalby region's rural prosperity led to the closure of St Joseph's Hostel in 1999. The former convent became known as Iona after the relocation of the school. It was then used by a number of community and educational groups. In May 2006 the Myall Youth and Community Network Centre (MYCNC) moved into the former convent, however in mid-2010 it was awaiting completion of purpose-built facilities in Diplock Park opposite Dalby High School.
","criteria":"The former St Columba's Convent is an elegant architectural composition with great aesthetic merit, with its triple-gabled front façade, walls of face brick with cement rendered bands, and a perimeter of timber verandahs. The cohesive design and scale realised in the convent gives it a commanding visual presence on the south-western end of Cunningham Street, Dalby's main thoroughfare, a quality that it shares with two other ecclesiastical buildings in the block to the north-east - St Joseph's Catholic Church and St John's Church of England (QHR 602399).
|St Columba's Convent (former) is an outstanding and highly intact example of a Sisters of Mercy convent and boarding facility built to serve the prosperous Darling Downs town of Dalby. On Cunningham Street the former convent retains its commanding presence, while its exterior displays further principal characteristics of a building of this type: triple-gabled street façade employing Gothic motifs and a perimeter of timber verandahs. In terms of layout and interior finishes, the former convent is also highly intact and therefore strongly illustrative of this type of cultural place: including ground floor chapel and sacristy, stained glass and leadlight windows, decorative timberwork, refectory and reception rooms and first floor nun's cells and boarders' dormitory with a coved, pressed metal ceiling.
|St Columba's Convent (former), a substantial brick and timber building constructed and opened in 1913 almost debt-free because of the donations made by parishioners, strikingly demonstrates the prosperity generated through pastoralism and agriculture on the Darling Downs, one of the most productive rural areas in Queensland.
St Columba's, designed by local architect George Bernard Roskell and constructed for the Sisters of Mercy, demonstrates the spread of the Catholic Church in regional Queensland, and in particular the significant contribution played by this order of nuns in the spiritual and educational development of the state through its establishment of convents, schools and boarding accommodation. The order served the Dalby parish for 113 years, occupying St Columba's for 77 of these until 1990.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650036,"name":"Dalby State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28B Nicholson Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-08-19","description":"Dalby State High School occupies a 7.6 ha, levelled site that is located approximately 600m northwest of the Dalby CBD. The site is primarily accessed from Nicholson Street (southeast); and is bounded by the Warrego Highway (southwest), the Dalby-Glenmorgan railway line (northwest) and a light-industrial property (northeast). The school retains a complex of six 1950s buildings (and part of a seventh), located in the southeast corner of the site and linked by covered walkways, with a playing field to the northeast and perimeter shade trees.
\nThe significant buildings within the school complex are:
\n· Block A (eastern end) – one 1953-4 Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Building (formerly used as a domestic science building), and a section of a second Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Building (1954-5, formerly used as a manual training building);
\n· Block B (eastern end) – a 1953-4 Boulton and Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building;
\n· Block C – a 1956-8 Timber School Building with timber floor trusses;
\n· Block D – a 1954-5 Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (formerly used as the intermediate school);
\n· Block F – a 1958-9 (former) administration building and library; and
\n· Block J – a 1958-9 Brick Veneer Vocational Building.
\nEvidence of early site planning of the school grounds remains and is typical of Queensland schools during the 1950s, with the long, narrow, buildings linked by covered ways around open-ended courtyard play spaces. Highset, timber-framed Blocks A (north), B (centre) and D (south) have north-facing verandahs and are arranged in a staggered, parallel formation, orientated slightly east of north, linked by an axis of highset covered walkways. Adjacent, Block C is orientated slightly further east and is connected to the western end of Block D by a lowset entranceway. Blocks J and F are single storey brick-veneer buildings; Block J to the northwest is at a right angle to Block C, and Block F is next to the main entrance and faces Nicholson Street.
\nBoulton & Paul Prefabricated Buildings (Blocks A & B)
\nBlocks A and B are long, highset, prefabricated timber-framed buildings with gable roofs that continue over the north-facing verandahs. A first floor covered walkway connects Block A with Block B to the south. Both blocks have later extensions to the west (Block A, 1977; and Block B, 1962), which are not the Boulton & Paul type and are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building exteriors are clad in timber chamferboards, including the southern and eastern sides of the understoreys, with the Boulton & Paul sections clearly distinguishable from later sections by vertical timber strips that define each panel of the prefabricated wall units on the first floor. The eastern end of Block B is clad in modern corrugated metal.
\nLarge areas of timber awning windows, with fanlights, line the southern Boulton & Paul walls, with brackets attached to the mullions and supporting the overhanging eaves. The verandahs have timber floors, continuous timber posts, flat-sheeted raked ceilings and enclosed balustrades, which are either clad in chamferboards (Block A) or profiled metal-clad bag racks (Block B).
\nThe Block A-B walkway aligns with the similar Block B-D walkway to the south. The highset covered walkways have continuous timber posts, railed balustrades, timber floors and flat roofs with flat-sheeted ceilings.
\nThe understoreys have concrete floors, and combine open play space with enclosed areas for various uses. The floor structure of the classrooms above is exposed, with timber bearers supported on concrete piers. Windows on the eastern and southern sides are a combination of louvred (Block A) and latticed (Blocks A & B).
\nBlock A
\nBlock A includes one Boulton & Paul building to the east, and part of another Boulton & Paul building to the west, and retains its original chamferboard-clad northeast corner verandah balustrade, and bulkheads approximately halfway along the verandah indicate the location of the former domestic science laundry. The verandah is accessed by modern metal-framed stairs, and is enclosed with lattice and metal mesh above the balustrade. Windows along the verandah wall have been replaced with modern aluminium-framed sliding sashes, with fanlights. Classrooms have half-glazed, boarded doors.
\nThe first floor contains two classrooms to the east of the covered way, and two offices to the west, which have a hallway containing steps up to the adjacent extension. The passageway connecting the covered way with the verandah has been relocated to the west, into the remaining section of the second Boulton & Paul building (former manual training), around modern store rooms. An opening formed in the partition between the classrooms has a modern concertina door. The classroom walls are flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips, and the ceilings have been relined lined with plasterboard.
\nThe understorey contains a tuckshop (1965-77), office and store rooms. The walls are clad in a combination of timber chamferboards, V-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards, timber battens and flat sheeting, and the interiors are lined with flat sheeting, some areas with rounded cover strips.
\nBlock B
\nBlock B has timber stairs positioned at either end of the verandah, with the understoreys of the stairs clad in chamferboards. The stairs have railed timber balustrades, which are also retained on adjacent sections of the verandah. The verandah walls have double-hung sash windows, with awning fanlights, and modern flush-finish doors.
\nThe first floor contains three classrooms and two store rooms to the west of the covered way, and a staff room to the east. Classroom interiors have flat-sheeted walls, with rounded cover strips, and modern suspended ceilings.
\nThe understorey contains a classroom and student café, separated by a store room. The enclosures are clad and lined with flat sheeting, with cover strips to the interiors.
\nLater Extensions
\nThe later western extensions are similar in form to the original buildings, but are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nThe Block A (1977) extension is set slightly higher, and has a wider verandah. The understorey is enclosed with face brick; a narrow passageway separates it from the 1950s section.
\nThe Block B (1962) extension has a flat-sheeted verandah wall with vertical louvres over fixed glazing. The understorey is partly open.
\nHighset Timber School Building with Semi-enclosed Stair (Block D)
\nBlock D is a long, highset, gable-roofed building with semi-enclosed stairs at either end of the north-facing verandah. The exterior is clad in chamferboards, including the stairs and the eastern, southern and western sides of the understorey. An original gable-roofed projection to the north is at a right angle to the main building and connects with the covered walkway to Block B. An adjacent ground floor covered walkway connects with Block F to the east.
\nThe southern wall has large areas of timber awning windows and the verandah wall has double-hung timber sashes, both with fanlights. The verandah has full height (continuous) timber posts, timber floors, raked ceilings and enclosed bag rack balustrades, which are clad in profiled metal. Classroom doors are half-glazed and boarded.
\nThe first floor contains five classrooms and a staff room, with the three central classrooms divided by original timber-panelled folding partitions. The interiors are lined with flat sheeting, with rounded cover strips above dado height and on the ceilings. The northern projection has double-hung timber sash windows, and contains adjoining office and store rooms.
\nThe understorey combines open play space and enclosed areas for a staff lounge (western end) and store room (northern projection). The floor structure of the classrooms above is exposed, with the timber bearers supported on concrete piers. The understorey floor is concrete.
\nA lowset, skillion-roofed uniform shop (former entranceway, 1956) connects the western end of Block D with Block C. The walls are brick, with fixed glazing and battened sheeting flanking a modern flush-finish door. A concrete slab with faceted corners projects south of the entranceway, and has a rectangular modern skillion-roofed awning over. An enclosed cantilevered walkway along the northern side connects the first floor verandahs of the two adjoining buildings; it is clad in corrugated metal and has high-level fixed windows. The interior is flat-sheeted and the ground floor has a modern suspended ceiling.
\nTimber School Building with Timber Floor Trusses (Block C)
\nBlock C is a long, gable-roofed building supported on open timber floor trusses. Built in stages, it comprises: four highset classrooms and a cloakroom (1956) at the eastern end; a single highset classroom to the immediate west (1957); and a single first floor classroom and two ground floor classrooms at the western end (1958).
\nThe exterior is clad in weatherboards, including the eastern and southern sides of the understorey. The southern wall has large banks of awning windows along the first floor, and the ground floor classrooms. High-level window openings on the southern side of the eastern understorey are lined with lattice. The two-storey end wall and piers supporting the 1958 extension’s verandah are face brick. The gable roof of the 1958 extension continues over its verandah, while the earlier verandah has a lower, flatter roof, supported on continuous metal posts and set below clerestory lights on the verandah wall.
\nThe verandah is accessed via metal-framed stairs, and has timber floors and bag rack balustrades that are clad externally with profiled metal. Classroom doors are half-glazed, and double-hung sash windows, with fanlights, line the chamferboard-clad verandah and northern understorey walls. The western classrooms are distinguishable from the earlier classrooms by their narrower verandah chamferboards.
\nThe classrooms are separated by fixed partitions, with 2-light panelled timber doors at the southern end. The interior walls and ceilings are flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips (above dado height on the first floor). Classrooms retain cupboards under sloping whiteboards.
\nThe understorey features exposed timber floor trusses, visible in both the classrooms and the open play space at the eastern end. Block C is connected to Block J to the north by a ground-floor covered walkway.
\nBrick Veneer Vocational Building (Block J)
\nBlock J is a long, single storey, brick veneer building with an open web steel portal frame. The building retains its four classrooms, with a passageway along the western side that aligns with the covered way connecting with Block C. A lowset former storage/office wing surrounds the northwest corner.
\nThe low-pitched gable roof of the wing and the skillion roof of the passage are set lower than the gable-roofed core, with clerestory lights between. The roofs are clad in corrugated metal. The eastern and western sides of the building are clad in profiled metal below sill height. Windows on the eastern side of the classrooms comprise modern aluminium-framed sliding sashes, with a continuous fanlight, shaded by an exterior high-level louvred metal awning. New doors have been added to the eastern side of the classrooms. Windows on the western side of the passageway, the clerestory and the wing have been removed (at the time of inspection in mid-2016) for replacement.
\nThe interior has been altered, with the removal of some walls, and the addition of some new partitions. The classrooms have modern suspended ceilings and walls sheeted in plasterboard, concealing and enclosing the open web steel portal frame. The fabric added in 2016 is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nAdministration Building (Block F)
\nBlock F is a long, single storey, brick veneer building with a low-pitched gable roof. In 2016 it is used as a student services building and comprises: a central entrance lobby and waiting area; two large and one small offices / meeting rooms to the southwest (former open-plan library), with a passageway along the northwest side; and two small office / meeting rooms (former Principal’s Office), and a store room and kitchenette (part of former waiting room and an original store room), to the northeast.
\nThe main entrance from Nicholson Street is indicated by a flat-roofed metal-framed canopy and a stencilled, poly-chrome painted concrete slab; it has stained timber-framed wired-glass doors, with sidelights. A ground floor covered walkway connects the western side of the lobby with Block D to the west.
\nThe southwest section has banks of timber-framed awning windows on the southeast side (with fanlights) and along the passageway (clad above externally in profiled metal). Some of the timber-framed awning windows on the northeast wall have been replaced with metal-framed sliding windows.
\nThe interior walls and ceilings are predominantly flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips. The lobby interior combines flat-sheeted and face brick walls. The wall between the two large southwest offices (1972) is clad in stained timber-veneer. The doors are a combination of painted, stained timber-veneer and half-glazed.
\nOther Structures
\nNon-significant 1950s building elements include post-1950s understorey enclosures, and modern windows, doors, partitions, cupboards, wall and floor linings, suspended ceilings and kitchenettes. Other buildings, structures, pathways and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a generously sized playing field/sports oval at the eastern end of the site, with perimeter shade trees.
\nThe school buildings are set back from the Warrego Highway, with an open lawn between. A row of mature trees line the Warrego Highway boundary, the oldest being closest to the corner, and a mature bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) is situated adjacent to Nicholson Street. An mature tree is also located north of the west end of Block A’s 1970s extension.
\nThe entrance to Block F retains an area of stencilled, poly-chrome painted concrete slab. The main entrance from Nicholson Street, northeast of Block F, is landscaped with modern pavers and garden beds that contain a range of shrubs.
\nA decorative metal archway (possibly pre-1961), set on modern concrete plinths, frames a pedestrian entrance from the corner of the Warrego Highway and Nicholson Street, featuring ‘DALBY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’ in metal lettering.
\nThe splayed open courtyard spaces between the 1950s buildings, which were formed as part of the 1950s planning, are sealed in bitumen, with large areas finished with modern synthetic turf and sheltered by modern open shade structures.
","history":"Dalby State High School (SHS) opened on its present site in 1954, due to overcrowding at Dalby State School (est.1861) – which had accommodated a secondary department (or ‘high top’) since 1914. In 2016 Dalby SHS retains six 1950s buildings, and part of a seventh, which demonstrate the evolution of standard government designs: the eastern half of Block A (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Buildings, 1953-5); the eastern section of Block B (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building, 1953-4); Block D (Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair, 1954-5); Block C (Timber School Building with timber floor trusses, 1956-8); Block F (administration building, 1958-9); and Block J (Brick Veneer Vocational Building, 1958-9). It also retains its 1950s site planning; covered links; and paved areas associated with Block F; along with a sports oval and mature perimeter trees. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment.
\nThe traditional land of the Barunggam people, Dalby was established with European settlement of the Darling Downs from 1840. Laid out in 1852, Dalby was resurveyed and named in 1853, and its Town Reserve was declared in August 1855. The first urban land sales were held in 1857, and Dalby became a municipality on 29 August 1863.[1]
\nThe growing town soon required a school. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[2] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nA school was built in Dalby by public subscription by early 1859, and the Dalby National School (later Dalby State School) opened on 1 June 1861 on Cunningham Street.[5] In September 1861 the locals voted to transfer the building and land to the Board of Education, to become a vested national school.[6]
\nTransport improvements had a major effect on the prosperity and growth of Dalby. The extension of the western railway line from Toowoomba to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom in the town, which had a population of 3500 by the mid-1870s. However, Dalby’s population plummeted to 1500 when the line was extended west towards Roma in 1877, and people followed the railhead. Farming was initially inhibited due to a lack of rain, and without refrigeration agricultural produce could not be delivered to distant markets.[7] By 1885 the population was 1296, and this had only recovered to 1416 by 1901.[8] Dalby's population recovered in the early 20th century due to the Queensland Government’s enforced break-up of the large pastoral stations, and its construction of branch railway lines, which encouraged closer settlement. Dairying and wheat cultivation expanded, and the development of agriculture led to secondary industries in Dalby. However, the rural economy of the area remained predominantly pastoral until after World War II.[9]
\nAs Dalby grew, so did the state school. A secondary department opened in January 1914.[10] In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II.[11]
\nOver three decades, enrolment at the Dalby State School’s high top slowly rose, from 16 students in 1915 to 41 in 1944.[12] Domestic science classes were also added to the secondary department in 1922, and woodwork and commercial courses followed in 1927. Pupils from the wider district outside Dalby also attended these vocational classes, some of which were held at night.[13] Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after World War I into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[14] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.[15]
\nAlthough closer settlement boosted agriculture, prickly pear cactus was a serious impediment for farmers in the Dalby district, until it was eradicated by the introduction of the moth Cactoblastis cactorum to Queensland in the late 1920s. As a result, Dalby experienced renewed growth and prosperity, and its population reached 3500 in the mid-1930s.[16]
\nThere was further expansion of agriculture in the Dalby District after World War II, due to the Soldier Settlement Scheme, which lead to an influx of young farmers. During the 1950s grain and wheat silos were constructed around the district, and a new flour mill was opened in Dalby. There was a related expansion of secondary industries, and an extensive home building program in the town. Dalby’s population reached 4385 in 1947, and 6182 in 1954, with an acute housing shortage in town by 1955.[17]
\nDalby State School’s enrolments grew in step with the town, and extra classrooms were added in the 1940s and early 1950s. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[18] Enrolment at Dalby State School rose to 491 by 1945, and to 1024 by 1954. Leslie F Diplock, head teacher of Dalby State School from 1946, and State Member for Condamine from 1953, was instrumental in pushing for a new high school.[19]
\nA decision was made to provide a state high school for Dalby in July 1953, and building plans were prepared by the Department of Public Works (DPW) the following month.[20] However, a site plan had previously been prepared in 1952.[21] From their introduction, the design of high school buildings was the responsibility of the DPW. The first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. The first purpose-built high school buildings were constructed in 1917.[22]
\nIn the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha) providing ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[23]
\nAlso, there was a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion and ideal solar orientation. In the early 1950s, architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[24] This concept was replaced a few years later by architects planning for growth and change. There was a shift away from grid-like layouts to organic layouts. Nuclear plans were designed, centred on an administration/reception building with classroom wings connected to and fanning away from the nucleus. The primary focus was the ideal solar orientation of buildings. Interest was also shown in developing schemes that related to the natural contours and existing vegetation. Unlike the more formal and symmetrical plans of previous periods, new plans were developed that tended to be asymmetrical and more open. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them were triangular, opening out into the landscape.[25]
\nAt Dalby, the site chosen, northwest of Nicholson Street, was previously a 23 acre (9.3ha) Reserve for Park and Recreation, of which 20 acres and 19.3 perches (8.1ha) were gazetted as a school reserve by 1955.[26]
\nThe early development of the school reflects the 1950s shift in emphasis from grid-like layouts towards more organic planning strategies, which provided for ‘ordered growth from a nucleus’.[27] The initial school buildings consisted of four highset timber-framed buildings near the corner of Nicholson Street and the Warrego Highway – arranged in three parallel wings staggered one behind the other, aligned just east of north with verandahs along the north sides, and linked by an axis of highset covered walkways.
\nThe southernmost wing (originally called Block A; Block D in 2016) was for the intermediate school and administration, and this building consisted of (from the west) three 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms and then two 20ft by 24ft (6.1m by 7.3m) classrooms; with a 16ft by 24ft (4.9m by 7.3m) library and reading room at the east end. The three middle classrooms were separated by folding doors. The administration section, attached off the north verandah, included a principal’s room and an assistant teachers room.
\nThe high school wing (Block B originally and in 2016) consisted of a small store room and assistant teachers room at the west end; a science room, a lecture room, and a classroom; then a hallway linking to the covered ways; and a commercial room at the east end of the wing – each of the main rooms being 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m).
\nThe vocational training wing (originally comprising Blocks C and D, now called Block A in 2016) consisted of two buildings: the eastern one was a domestic science block (originally Block C), with cooking and dressmaking classrooms in the centre, each 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m); with a teachers room and girls change room at the east end, and a dining room and laundry room at the west end of the block. The western building was the manual training block (originally Block D, of which only the east end survives in 2016), which had a sheet metalwork room and a woodwork room, each being 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m), with a store and teachers room at the west end, and a store and wood machinery room at the east end of the block.[28]
\nPlans of the semi-enclosed understories of the buildings included a health services room under the assistant teachers room in the administration section, and a drawing room under the east end of the intermediate wing. There was also a timber storeroom under the east end of the manual training block.[29] All the buildings had horizontal boarded cladding and large banks of hopper windows facing south.[30]
\nThe high school wing and domestic science block were built in 1953-4, followed by the manual training block (completing the vocational training wing) and the intermediate wing in 1954-5.[31]
\nThere were differences in construction methods between the wings. The high school wing (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building) and the domestic science and manual training blocks (both Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Buildings) of the vocational training wing at Dalby were imported buildings.[32] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the DPW imported a British building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included wall panels, ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1951 and 1958.[33] Boulton & Paul buildings were timber framed and clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The stairs to the verandah were often semi-enclosed. The building could be low-set, or highset with a play space underneath, and had extensive areas of timber framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[34]
\nThe intermediate wing was a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair. From the early 1950s the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings, which were similar to the Boulton & Paul buildings but not prefabricated.[35] These buildings were also highset timber framed structures with the understorey used as covered play space. The principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. [36] A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building, with full height timber verandah posts that extended from ground level to the roof line. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed – with awning (top-hung) windows to the southern elevation, and double-hung sashes to the verandah wall. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[37]
\nThe new Dalby State High School opened 2 February 1954, with an enrolment of 67. At this time the floor was still being laid for the domestic science block, and electric lighting was not yet installed.[38] The school was then officially opened on 4 September 1954 by the Minister for Education, GE Devries, who noted that enrolments in state secondary schools had doubled from 5000 to 10,000 in the previous 5 years. He also stated that the buildings at Dalby were well ventilated, with a large amount of window space, and a generous floor area. At the time of the official opening the high school had an enrolment of 49 students in Form III and 21 in Form IV, and the manual training block had not yet been built. Grades 7 and 8 would transfer to the new school when the intermediate school building was completed. [39]
\nSoon after the official opening a working bee was held on the school grounds. Seventy trees, including athel pines, silky oak, and other pines, plus Dalby myalls, and iron bark, were planted on the frontages to Nicholson Street and the Warrego Highway, and by December 1954 a playing field area had been mown, ploughed and harrowed, ready for rolling. [40]
\nGrade 8 moved to the intermediate school at the new high school in 1956, followed by Grade 7 in 1957.[41] The idea of creating an intermediate level of schooling emerged in Queensland during the late 1920s. This was intended to be a transition between primary and secondary schooling. Intermediate schools also offered vocational subjects: manual training for boys and domestic science for girls.[42] By 1961 there were 654 intermediate and secondary students at Dalby State High School, which taught academic, commercial, industrial, home science and agricultural science courses.[43] However, the intermediate section only operated from 1956 to 1963. Grade 8 became part of the high school in 1964; and in 1965 Grade 7 returned to the state school.[44]
\nThere were a number of changes and additions to the school in the late 1950s. In 1956-7 a highset Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block C in 2016) was added, at a slight angle, to the west end of the intermediate wing. Around this time the library/reading room space at the east end of the intermediate wing was converted into a teachers room and store.[45]
\nBlock C represented an evolution of the DPW’s standard 1950s design, replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space. This type was also often fitted with clerestory windows above the verandah roof. [46] The building at Dalby was designed to have six classrooms, each 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m), with a cloakroom between the fourth and fifth (from the east) classrooms, and a northern verandah. However, the two western classrooms and cloakroom of Block C were not built by mid-1957, and the westernmost classroom was not added until 1958, when two additional classrooms were also added under the west end of the block.[47] In the semi-enclosed understory of Block C, drinking troughs were located along the southern wall, and a raised concrete platform was located at the east end.
\nAn entrance link, with stairs up to the northern verandahs, filled the angle between the intermediate wing and Block C. This entrance was constructed in brick and had a skillion roof, and glazed double doors flanked by fixed glazing. The reinforced concrete slab floor extended outside to the south and was surrounded by boiler-plate flower boxes (not extant in 2016). Two brick flower boxes were also created to the rear (north) of the entrance link, and the western box survives in 2016.[48] The original fan-shaped awning has since been replaced by a rectangular awning (post- January 2013).
\nEntry to the school has changed over time. A 1957 plan shows a pathway running directly from ‘Dalby-Kogan Road’ (the Warrego Highway) to the link between Blocks D and C, which was labelled ‘proposed entrance’. The caption read ‘Essential classroom accommodation has been provided here without the architectural emphasis to be derived from entrance and other features such as have been planned for this school.’ This plan also shows an entrance from Nicholson Street, east of the intermediate wing – about where the current pedestrian entrance is.[49]
\nThe pathway (not discernible in 2016) from the Warrego Highway to the entrance link is visible in a 1961 aerial photograph, as is a path (extant in 2016) from the intermediate wing to the corner of the Warrego Highway and Nicholson Street. The current metal arch at the corner, which reads ‘DALBY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’, may date from this period, although the concrete base under the arch was added after 2007.[50]
\nOther improvements at Dalby SHS in the 1950s included tennis courts, extant southwest of Block C by October 1958, and by this time there were also two toilet blocks north of the vocational training wing, and a school oval to the northeast.[51]
\nThe Queensland Government continued its focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s. New standard types were developed including a brick veneer, concrete slab-on-ground and steel portal frame structure for manual training in 1958.[52] A new manual training building (Block J in 2016) was built in late 1958-9, north of the west end of Block C, linked to the latter by a covered way.[53] The Brick Veneer Vocational Building at Dalby contained a staffroom, switch room and store in a skillion roofed section at the north end, with two woodwork rooms and then two sheet metal rooms to the south (each 30ft by 25ft [6.1m by 7.6m]), and a passageway along the west side. The roof was a low gable with clerestory windows between the passage roof and the main roof. There were awning windows on the east side. [54] The portal frames were to be of concrete or steel (the latter was used) and the wall cladding of face brick and metal.[55] The school complex now formed a ‘U’ shape, angled slightly inwards at the top (north).
\nA new administration building (Block F in 2016), also built in late 1958-9, was linked by a curved covered way to the lower level of the old administration section.[56] Block F originally consisted of a library and passageway at the south end, a lobby, and then a principal’s office and store. The building was brick veneer with a low gable roof of corrugated iron. There were paved areas either side of the building, and a cover was added over the paving at the front entrance c.1959. In the former administration section north of the intermediate wing, the assistant teachers room was expanded to absorb the old principal’s office.[57]
\nAt the time of the construction of Block J and Block F, the DPW noted that as ‘one of the first of the new High Schools, Dalby suffered from the demand for austerity inescapable at that time, but each succeeding addition effects marked improvement and the buildings are gaining aesthetically in the process. The most recent additions add the weight of bricks and mortar in such judicious degree that the ‘temporary’ atmosphere of earlier years is being displaced by a new academic atmosphere of controlled vistas and scholastic dignity.’ The new administration building also provided ‘a permanent entrance to the school’.[58]
\nDalby State High School continued to require additions and extensions during the 1960s-70s. In late 1961 Australia’s first commercial oilfield was discovered at Moonie, southwest of Dalby. Although a hoped-for refinery at Dalby never eventuated, the town received some economic benefits.[59] As local dairy farming declined from the 1960s, beef cattle replaced cows, and Dalby also became the centre of Australia’s largest reception, distribution and processing centre for grains.[60] In 1963 Dalby had a population of 7500, with 2365 school pupils (at the state school, state high school, St Columba’s Convent and the Christian Brothers College).[61]
\nIn 1960-1 a 40ft (12.2m) addition was made to the west end of the original manual training block (Block A in 2016), consisting of an agricultural science classroom and storeroom. A general purpose workroom, change room with shower, plus a store, were built immediately underneath. The remainder of the manual training block was converted to domestic science, with a kitchen and dressmaking room. The former wood machinery room at the east end became a dining room, and the former teachers room at the west end, adjacent to the new extension, became a rest/fitting room. [62]
\nNew toilet and shower blocks, connected to the original vocational training wing by a covered way, were added north of the school buildings c1961, and c1962 a 72ft (22m) addition was made to the west end of Block B, then known as the ‘science wing’. The extension included a physics demonstration room; physics store room, and physics laboratory.[63]
\nBy 1962 the room at the east end of the intermediate wing was a classroom, and Block J’s rooms were labelled as (from south to north) two drawing rooms, then metalwork, then woodwork.[64] In 1965 a tuckshop was built under the east end of the original domestic science block (Block A in 2016), and c.1968 a new science block was built east of the toilet blocks and Block A. By this time, Block E also existed north of Block A.[65]
\nBy 1971 a new amenities block had been added northeast of the toilet blocks and by this time the school appears to have had access to a recreation area north of the railway line. Although this land belonged to Napier Bros Limited from 1975, it remained as grass playing fields until c.2003.[66]
\nIn 1972 Block F was reconfigured, when the library was divided into a sick bay, deputy principal and principal’s offices, and the former principal’s office at the northeast end of the building was allocated to a clerk-typist. The walls of the former principal’s office were pushed southwest into the lobby area, while the adjacent store room was altered and also extended southwest into the lobby area, with a small kitchenette formed at the northeast end of the storeroom. The same year a boys locker room was added to the understory of Block B, and a girls locker room was established in the ground floor of the entrance link between Block C and the former intermediate wing, and the flower beds under the entrance awning were removed at this time.[67]
\nBy 1975 there was a ‘great hall’ near the western corner of the school, and a library north of E block; the 1961 toilet blocks had been replaced by extending of the 1971 amenities block, and there were demountable classrooms west of J block and basketball courts northeast of the 1968 science block.[68] In late 1976 plans were drawn for a new locker room and two more classrooms (these were not extant in 2016, and may not have been built) to the understory of Block C, east of the existing two classrooms; while the entrance link between Block C and the former intermediate wing was converted into a storeroom, and a sports store and animal store were added under the 1950s section of Block B.[69] By this time most of the western building of the original vocational training wing was no longer indicated on plans, presumably meaning it had been demolished. [70]
\nThe reason was a fire in April 1976, which had caused $100,000 in damage to the school,[71] and a new building (constituting the western half of Block A in 2016) was constructed in 1977. This replaced all but the easternmost part of the original manual training block. The internal corridor leading from the covered way was moved west, into the remaining section of the manual training block, which was also used to form part of a new textile store and laundry room. At this time the original domestic science block was formed into two textile rooms, with a store and two fitting rooms between them, and the partitions for the small rooms at each end of the block were removed, along with the windows at the east end of the block.[72]
\nChanges in room use also occurred from the late 1970s into the 1980s. In 1978 the old administration rooms north of the former intermediate wing were converted into boys and girl’s health rooms, with obscure glass windows, while the former health services room downstairs became the guidance officer’s room. In 1983 the science room at the west end of the original section of Block B was converted to a computer room, while the wall between the former store room and assistant teachers room was removed, creating an annexe to the west of the computer room. In the late 1980s Block J’s southernmost two rooms were converted to Graphics rooms, with a woodwork room and a metalwork room to the north, and the staff room to the north became a store room.[73]
\nBy 2016 a number of other buildings had been added to the school, including a music block (c1987) northwest of Block C, and a new manual block northwest of Block J by 1990; a new home economics block west of Block E, with new tennis courts further west, and a new administration building northeast of Block F by 1998; and a small building north of Block E by 2004.[74] In 2011 a trade training centre was added northwest of the hall, and by 2013 there was a new building northeast of the 1960s science block and the library had been extended. A Year 7 building was constructed west of the music block in 2014.[75] In 2016 Block J was renovated, with new interior linings, new windows to existing openings, and new doorways to the eastern side.
\nThe size of the school was slightly reduced in 1996, when the western corner was excised into the road reserve to create a carpark, to the school’s current 7.6ha.[76] The Dalby Agricultural College, which opened in 1979 just northeast of the town, was acquired by Dalby State High School in 2011, becoming its ‘Bunya Campus’ with a residential college and working farm.[77] In 2016, Dalby SHS continues to operate from its original site on Nicholson Street. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Dalby State High School (established in 1954) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities.
\nIt is also important for demonstrating the pattern of provision of secondary education across Queensland in the 1950s, as it incorporates all the features associated with secondary education – a high school, an intermediate school and vocational training facilities.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom buildings, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the early 1950s introduction of master planning, and the subsequent shift from grid-like layouts around a central axis towards more organic planning strategies, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings (1953-5) demonstrate the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period. The former domestic science block also reflects the Queensland Government’s focus on vocational training as a way of ensuring the state’s economic prosperity.
\nThe Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (1954-5) and Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (1956-8) represent the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the mid to late 1950s, based on features of the Boulton & Paul buildings.
\nThe former administration building and Brick Veneer Vocational Building (both 1958-9) represent a move away from the austerity of the early 1950s to a more permanent aesthetic, incorporating masonry elements. The former administration building, with its entry canopy and poly-chrome painted concrete paving, provided a formal entrance to the school.
\nThe Brick Veneer Vocational Building also represents the Queensland Government’s ongoing emphasis on vocational training.
|Dalby State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school of the 1950s. These include its 1950s site planning; range of highset or lowset timber-framed and brick veneer buildings of standard and individual designs; and a generous, landscaped site with shade trees, and assembly and sports areas.
\nFollowing 1950s site planning principles, the school includes six 1950s buildings (and part of a seventh) that all contribute to the general concept of long, narrow buildings linked around open ended courtyard assembly and play spaces. The four earliest buildings are arranged in a staggered parallel formation of three wings, linked by an axis of covered walkways, while the three later buildings are arranged and linked in a more organic manner.
\nThe former administration building; the former entrance link between the buildings addressing the Warrego Highway; and the covered links between the buildings, are characteristic of 1950s school design in Queensland, providing a ground level administration facility connected to the school by a covered walkway, with other walkways linking the classroom blocks.
\nThe highset timber teaching buildings are all good, intact examples of their type and retain their: highset character with some covered play space under; timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roofs; north-facing verandahs for circulation; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with fanlights; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings also clearly demonstrate the characteristics of prefabricated buildings through the expression of their modular construction in the external cladding.
\nThe connected Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair and the Timber School Building with timber floor trusses demonstrate two iterations of the Department of Public Work’s standard designs: the first on concrete piers; and the second incorporating timber floor trusses for unimpeded play space. The building on trusses also retains clerestory lighting above its northern verandah roof.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nDalby State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Dalby community. It was established in 1954 and generations of Dalby students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Dalby and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650070,"name":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4","alternate_name":"Waaje Fire Tower #4","street_address":"Barakula State Forest","suburb":"BARAKULA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-01-25","description":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4 is located in Barakula State Forest (SF), which covers 283,500ha. Set on top of a hill in a small clearing about 407m above sea level in the Great Dividing Range with a view over the surrounding forest, the tower is about 80km by road north-northwest of Chinchilla.
\nA ‘Type G’ four-legged timber fire tower, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 has four single-length grey ironbark (Eucalyptus paniculata) circular poles fixed with through bolts to steel straps set in concrete pad footings. The four concrete footings are about 1.22 m square in plan and the height from the top of the footings to the top of the cabin deck is around 30.5m with an overall height of approximately 34m.[1] The poles, set about 5.5m apart at the base, lean inwards towards the top of the tower.
\nThere are eight braced sections to the tower above an unbraced bottom section. The eight braced sections each have rectangular-cut timber diagonal braces bolted across the outside of each face of the tower between the rectangular-cut timber horizontal bracing of each section. There is no diagonal bracing between the legs within the structure.
\nNine flights of timber internal parallel stairs with timber handrails and small cantilevered timber landings on the outside of the poles at the end of each flight originally allowed access up the tower on the north side. The lowest flight of stairs has been removed to prevent access to the tower. The top flight of stairs passes through a rectangular hole cut in the cabin’s external deck, which is supported by a system of bearers and joists fixed to the main tower. The deck is surrounded by timber guardrails and metal diamond wire mesh. There is a small radio antenna mast fixed to the northwest corner post of the deck.
\nThe cabin, which has a hipped, corrugated metal-clad roof with wide eaves, gutters and downpipe, is estimated to be 2.7m2, with an internal ceiling height of 2.4m, and has glass louvre windows on all four sides above half-height timber walls. A doorway from the external deck into the cabin is set in the north corner of the east wall. The interior of the cabin could not be inspected in 2017 but drone footage shows a map table in the centre of the cabin and compass bearings painted around the internal walls under the windows. Most timber is in good condition, apart from the stairs, the cabin’s external decking floor boards and the guard rails.[2]
","history":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4, located in Barakula State Forest (SF) over 60km north-northwest of Chinchilla, is a four-legged timber (Type G) fire tower with cabin, with single-length grey ironbark poles and a total height of approximately 34m. It was erected in May 1964 by Arthur Leis, for the Queensland Forestry Department, to help pinpoint fire outbreaks within valuable native forest. It was the first Queensland fire tower to exceed 30m in height, and is now the tallest surviving intact four-legged timber fire tower, the tallest Queensland timber fire tower with single-length poles, and the last intact 1960s four-legged timber fire tower. It and the other staffed fire towers in Queensland have been rendered obsolete by a shift to using remote camera surveillance to detect fires, instead of on-site human observers.[1]
\nBarakula SF, established in 1907, was part of Queensland Government’s efforts to conserve native forests for sustainable forestry. Of Queensland's natural resources, timber was the most obvious and abundant to the first Europeans, and the timber industry played a vital role in the economic development of Queensland,[2] while also providing its most important building material. From the earliest days of non-Indigenous occupation, Queensland’s native timbers were exploited; by timber getters, as well as by settlers clearing agricultural or pastoral land. The first timber reserves, gazetted in 1870, were aimed at protecting timber for future railway use.[3]
\nEfforts began in the late 19th century to save the timber resource from being totally exhausted. The Crown Lands Act 1876 prohibited cutting of certain species on vacant Crown Land or pastoral leases, and placed girth limits on cutting pine and cedar, while the Crown Lands Act 1884 enabled the Queensland Government to reserve State Forests on Crown Land, and seek royalties from licensed timber getters on Crown Lands. However, these laws could not compete with the dominant philosophy of the time, which was to promote settlement and development. By 1885, there were 161 Timber Reserves (covering 636,484ha) and 16 State Forests (81,980ha) but the 1880s were also boom years for timber exploitation in Queensland.[4]
\nDuring the 1890s there was increased concern that government revenue was being lost to unregulated timber exploitation.[5] The creation of the Forestry Branch in 1900 within the Lands Department represented a shift in approach. While the responsibility for leasing timber reserves and reservation of Crown Lands for forestry initially stayed with the Lands Department, the Forestry Branch became responsible for reforestation, research, land acquisition, the control and prohibition of fires, surveys, timber harvesting and marketing (including roads and logging), sawmill licenses, and (eventually) national park management.[6]
\nPhillip MacMahon’s appointment as Director of Forests (1905-10) marked the beginning of professional forestry in Queensland, and Minister for Lands Joshua Bell introduced the ‘State Forests and National Parks Bill’ in November 1906. This allowed the permanent reservation of Crown Land for State Forests and National Parks, within which alienation of land was prohibited without an Act of Parliament, although there were special purpose and occupation licenses. Holders of leases and licenses could not cut timber without authorisation. The State Forests and National Parks Act 1906 took effect on 1 January 1907.
\nThe quality of the ironbark trees in the Chinchilla District had been commented on in 1906 by FW Wade, State Forest Ranger, when he inspected the country north of the Western Railway between Chinchilla and Miles.[7] The main trees in this area at the time were narrow-leafed ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra), spotted gum (Eucalyptus maculata) and red and black cypress pine (Callitris spp). Ironbark (a fire tolerant hardwood) and cypress pine (a fire sensitive softwood) were already being cut, with new sawmills opening in the area.[8]
\nOn 8 June 1907, a Reserve for a State Forest was created in the Dalby and Taroom Land Agent’s Districts, under The State Forests and National Parks Act 1906, covering 479 square miles (306,560 acres or 124,060ha), in the counties of Newcastle, Auburn, Lytton; and the parishes of Coondarra, Goldsmith, Malcolm, Macdonald, Ballon and Burncluith.[9] This State Forest was the largest in Queensland and it remains so in 2017, covering 283,500ha.[10]
\nBy 1912, a 25 mile (40km) long railway had been built into the State Forest, from Chinchilla, in order to obtain hardwood sleepers for the railways, and the terminus was named Barakula, the Aboriginal term for ‘Big Timber’. A State timber mill was also established at Barakula, and the State Forest was called Barakula State Forest by 1927.[11]
\nDuring the early 20th century, there was increased government concern about the depletion of native timber supplies. Under NM Jolly and then EHF Swain as Director of Forests (1911-18, and 1918-32 respectively), the Queensland Government established native softwood (hoop pine) plantations and attempted to regenerate native forest areas. The Forestry Branch applied silvicultural (forest cultivation) improvement regimes, including ringbarking old and unproductive trees, regeneration burns, and slashing new growth competing with seedlings.[12] Under Swain, offices were established in six forestry regions: Atherton, Brisbane, Bundaberg-Rockhampton, Gympie, Maryborough, and Dalby (Barakula SF lies within the latter).[13]
\nPart of the work of the Forestry Branch, and its later incarnations, was protecting plantations and State Forests from fire.[14] Consideration was given to the need for effective fire protection as early as 1911, when it was discussed at an Interstate Conference on Forestry held in Sydney.[15] As the new Forestry Branch initially had few resources, fire protection was limited to roads and firebreaks, with fire spotters operating from natural high points and trees. During the 1930s, the Forestry Branch applied a fire exclusion policy, where fire breaks were created adjacent to the forest to be protected, with no burn-offs within the State Forest or reserve. The early detection of any wildfires within the protected forests was thus vital. This policy continued into the 1940s and 1950s but a series of bad fires in the 1950s and early 1960s led to a reappraisal of the exclusion policy (which had led to a build-up of dry fuel for fires) and a change to controlled burning in suitable weather.[16]
\nThe requirement for early fire detection in Queensland led to the construction of lookouts, lowset fire cabins, and cabins on towers, which would work alongside improved communications, firebreaks, fire huts with water tanks, and access roads for fire-fighting.[17] The first official lookout station was at Observation Hill, at Goodnight Scrub west of Bundaberg, in 1931. A 15m high four-legged timber fire tower with a cabin and telephone was built in 1933-4 at Wongabel, the first of its kind in Queensland; and the first standard design timber ground cabin, Watalgan Fire Cabin No.4, was built in the Littabella Forest Reserve in 1935.[18]
\nThe first fire observation (FO) structure built in Barakula SF was Barakula Fire Tower No.1 (1938, demolished), which was a four-legged timber tower, 15m high, with a forestry cottage nearby; and the lowset timber Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6 was built in 1940 (since removed), about 51km west-southwest of Waaje Fire Tower No.4.[19]
\nFrom 1930 to 2003, 129 timber or steel FO structures were built in Queensland, with 66 surviving by 2004.[20] Although Queensland’s fire towers were built as far north as the Atherton Tableland, most were located along the coast from Brisbane and Toowoomba north to Bundaberg; and in a north-south swathe to the west of Toowoomba.[21]
\nThe early fire towers were built with timber and were usually designed by the men who built them. Large timber poles (preferably grey ironbark, Eucalyptus paniculata) were used for the legs (a single pole per leg, or poles spliced together for taller towers), which added stiffness and strength in high winds. Tall trees with a straight bole (trunk) and a minimal ‘pipe’ of dead wood in the centre were used in fire tower construction. They were dressed by removing the branch stubs and straightened by trimming the outside of any bend with a broadaxe.[22]
\nOriginally, the poles were set directly into the ground but later they were bolted to steel brackets set in concrete footings, as first occurred in 1941 at Beerburrum. The towers were generally sited where there was dense, high quality and fire-susceptible timber worth protecting and they required road access to near the centre of a forest or a high point. The height of the tower was determined by estimating the height of the mature trees it would need to see over. Initially, this involved sending someone up a radio mast with a camera.[23]
\nOne of the men who constructed Queensland’s fire towers was Arthur Leis, who built 28 towers between 1957 and 1987, including Queensland’s first three-legged timber tower, Mount Binga Fire Tower No.4 (1967, 31.8m) near Cooyar, and the three-legged timber Jimna Fire Tower No.10 [QHR601814], Queensland’s tallest fire tower (1977, pole length 44m). Leis designed the first three-legged tower after being that told the four-legged towers were getting too expensive to build. The triangular structure of three-legged towers provided more strength, with fewer components. The fire tower construction process followed by Leis included: forming a small clearing at the tower’s site with a bulldozer; choosing anchor trees to guy (rope) the poles in an upright position until they were fastened in place; transporting the poles to the site to be dressed; bolting wales (horizontally fixed timbers) and braces (diagonally fixed) between pairs of legs, with this carpentry, as well as construction of the cabin, occurring on the ground; raising a ‘Sampson’ pole, which was used to help haul up the other tower legs; and then adding the stairs and cabin.[24]
\nTower design has changed over the years. Internal stairs were used instead of ladders from c1940. The earlier cabins were entered by a trap door in the floor but later external cabin decks were added (from 1958 at Mount Borumba) and doorways from these decks into the cabins soon became the sole point of entry (for example at Waaje Fire Tower No.4). Queensland’s first steel fire tower (four-legged) was built in at Lemon Tree Hill near Cardwell in 1966 and the last (and tallest) four-legged timber tower, Yuleba Fire Tower No.1 (36.6m), was built at the Amoolee Departmental Purposes Reserve the same year. With the move to three-legged timber towers, spliced poles became the norm, rather than single-length poles. The last three-legged timber fire tower was built in 1987 at Wolvi.[25]
\nThe early detection of a wildfire was more important to successful firefighting than firebreaks and the sooner the location of a fire was accurately pinpointed, the better. The tower cabins were manned by fire spotters with two or more towers working in tandem to locate a fire. Each cabin contained a map table with a 1:50,000 scale map (centred on the tower and marked with 360 degrees) and some had photographed or painted panoramas around the internal walls under the windows naming visible landscape features. A fine wire ran from the centre of the map to the ceiling. When smoke was spotted, the observer could stand behind the table and align the wire with the base of the fire and read the compass bearing from the degrees written on the cabin walls. The distance to the fire was estimated based on known landmarks, the sighting was added to the tower log book and a radio or telephone was used to communicate with other towers or the forestry base. Once a second tower took a bearing on the fire, its exact location could be confirmed by triangulation and fire fighters and equipment could be dispatched to the correct spot.[26]
\nThe increased demand for timber during and after World War II meant the Queensland Government pursued a reforestation policy after the war. Declining extraction of native hoop pine and bunya pine from the early 1940s was replaced with plantation pine, native cypress pine and hardwoods.[27] Fire tower construction also continued, to protect the new plantations, and a bad fire season in 1957 boosted fire detection efforts. In 1963 Barakula Fire Tower No.2 (four-legged timber, 15m, demolished) was constructed in the Barakula SF.[28]
\nIn 1964 Waaje Fire Tower No.4 was erected in the Waaje logging area of Barakula SF, on a section of the Great Dividing Range with a view over the surrounding forest. The tower could be staffed after lightning storms or during high fire danger periods. A ‘Type G’ four-legged timber fire tower, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 had: four single-length poles fixed to steel straps set in concrete footings; eight braced sections; internal parallel stairs with landings and handrails; and external deck access to the cabin, which had wide eaves. Built by Arthur Leis, with a pole height of about 30.5m, it was the first Queensland fire tower to exceed 30m in height and to have sole access into the cabin from the external deck rather than via a trapdoor in the cabin floor. Its total height, including cabin, is estimated at 34m. The project was also the first and only time that Forestry used a rigging firm, and a series of photographs, dated May 1964, recorded the construction. A scenic montage of the viewed landscape (up to 50 km away) was reportedly painted around the ceiling wall to indicate notable features, compass bearings and distance (not extant in 2017). [29]
\nAnother fire tower was soon opened in Barakula SF. In 1970 the Minister for Lands, Vic Sullivan, opened Coondarra Fire Tower No.5 (three-legged timber, 40.3m high, also built by Arthur Leis) about 25km west-southwest of Waaje Fire Tower No.4. The two towers worked in conjunction to pinpoint fires. In 2017, the cabin and part of the structure of Coondarra Fire Tower No.5 was in the process of being moved to the Chinchilla Historical Museum in Villiers Street, Chinchilla.[30]
\nDespite the existence of fire towers, errors could still be made in fire detection. During the 1965-66 financial year, a fire in the Waaje logging area caused $6,500 worth of damage and ‘thick dust haze caused experienced lookout observers to over-estimate grossly [sic] the distance of this fire, and it was not fought until it was quite large after ground reconnaissance established its location’.[31]
\nOther towers related to fire-fighting were built in the Barakula SF but these were steel and did not include cabins: Mount George Fire Tower No.7 (four-legged steel tank stand tower, 15m), and Wongongera Fire Tower No.8 (four-legged steel tank stand tower, 21.2m) were built in 1968 and 1982 respectively.[32] By 2003, there were also fire huts and tanks in the O’Donnell, Fairyland and Hurdle logging areas.[33]
\nBy 1980, when Queensland had 3,715,823ha of State Forest, the Dalby Forestry District contained 974,700ha (next biggest area was in the Rockhampton District, with 685,740ha).[34] In 1989, the Forestry Department was amalgamated into the Department of Primary Industries (called the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in 2017), becoming the Queensland Forest Service and in 1995 the commercial and forest management functions of the Department were separated into the Resource Management Business Group and the Forestry Group. The Forest Service's activities in plantations, native forests and quarries were fully commercialised under the new Forestry Group.[35] By the late 1990s, the Department of Primary Industry Forestry was responsible for commercial operations on 4.7 million hectares of Queensland’s publically owned forest estate, including 180,000ha of plantations.[36]
\nIn the late 1990s, a Comprehensive Regional Assessment of forests in the southeast Queensland bioregion was undertaken as part of a joint Commonwealth and Queensland effort to form a Regional Forest Agreement (to balance conservation and sustainable use). A heritage inventory of infrastructure on forestry land, which occurred as part of this process, was later extended to the Southern Brigalow Belt bioregion in 1998-99. A joint Department of Primary Industries (DPI Forestry) and Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service) project in early 2003 attempted to identify and assess the heritage values of Forestry infrastructure on State land in the Brigalow Belt bioregion.[37]
\nA Fire Observation Structures Heritage Project assessed the heritage values of all FO structures in Queensland, short-listing the most significant. In 2004, six FO structures were recommended for consideration for nomination to the Queensland Heritage Register. These included: Danbulla Fire Tower No.2 (1968, four-legged steel, 18.3m); Mount Allan Fire Tower No.5 (1954, four-legged timber, 9.6m); Yuleba Fire Tower No.1; Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6; Cordalba Fire Tree Lookout (batten laddering added to a tree in 1935); and the Jimna Fire Tower No.10.[38]
\nIn 2016, Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6 was moved to the Chinchilla Historical Museum.[39] In 2017, the restored Mount Allan Fire Tower No.5 is open to public access as part of the Conondale Range Great Walk while the cabin and part of the structure of Yuleba Fire Tower No.1 has been moved the Maranoa Regional Council’s depot in Yuleba, prior to development a tourist attraction. The heritage-listed three-legged Jimna Fire Tower No.10 was declared structurally unsound in 2004.[40]
\nWaaje Fire Tower No.4 was not included in the 2004 list of recommended places, although it was noted as being ‘in excellent order, in use and well maintained’ when it was inspected in 2001. It has since been closed and the first flight of stairs has been removed to prevent access.[41] With the removal of the Yuleba tower, the Waaje tower is now the tallest remaining four-legged timber fire tower in Queensland, and therefore the tallest tower using single-length timber poles. It is also the only intact example of a 1960s four-legged timber tower (all 1960s four-legged timber towers other than Yuleba and Waaje have been demolished).[42]
\nOf the 65 timber four-legged fire towers built in Queensland from 1933 to 1966, 17 survived in 2004, and six of these, including Waaje Fire Tower No.4, are still in-situ in 2017.[43] The towers have been rendered obsolete, as there has been a shift to using remote camera surveillance, mounted on steel structures, since 2002. This is due to the difficulty in sourcing new timber poles and the lower operational cost of unstaffed towers.[44]
\nIn 2017, the Barakula SF continues to produce cypress pine[45] and the disused Waaje Fire Tower No.4 is the only surviving in-situ timber fire tower of the four built in the forest. Although the Barakula SF is currently owned by the Queensland Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing, the tower is the property of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
","criteria":"The timber industry has played a vital role in the economic development of Queensland. Waaje Fire Tower No.4 (1964) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the management of timber resources by the Queensland Government, through the use of staffed fire observation structures to protect valuable stands of timber in State Forests from wildfires; and the associated evolution of timber fire tower design between the 1930s and the 1960s.
|As the tallest, surviving, intact four-legged timber fire tower in Queensland, Waaje Fire Tower No.4, with single length poles, represents the culmination of the evolution of four-legged timber fire tower design and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a timber fire tower. Sited on high ground, with expansive views over dense stands of forestry timber, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 retains: four single-pole grey ironbark (Eucalyptus paniculata) timber legs, fixed to steel straps set in concrete footings; eight braced sections; internal parallel stairs with landings and handrails; radio antenna mast: and external deck access to a cabin with wide eaves. Internally, the cabin retains its map table and compass bearings painted on the walls.
\n","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"} ]}