Category: Queensland State Archives’ Photostream About Fortitude Valley

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Homestead Gate.

It swings idly on its hinges, the old fashioned gate, the sun and wind have long since scarred its surface and the once snow-white palings are now a sickly grey. It swings to and fro as though mutely protesting against its fate, for far up in the ridge the carpenters are camped – the carpenters who for weeks past have been busy at the new home. The old homestead, with its long rambling verandahs and passages and roof of iron and shingle, has been razed to the ground, and today a grand new structure proudly stands on the grave of the old home.
‘Tis a long stretch of years since the young owner brought his girl-bride to the homestead to face their new life in the big, still bushland. Every evening the bride would come to the gateway and lean on the snow-white railings

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Among the Orchards.
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Profits of Fruit-Growing.
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“The Glen,” Mr. R. Hoggen’s home, is about a mile from the station, and its owner has several orchards on the banks of Accommodation and Black Rock Creeks. Mr. Hoggen made a speciality of cherries, but he finds that they are not a success with him, and he has rooted most of them out. He has tested a large number of varieties of apples and peaches, which he is making his standard crops. He makes a speciality of asparagus, which he grows to great perfection, and with which the Brisbane market is supplied. Alltogether Mr. Hoggen has about 6000 trees, and he is generally looked upon as adviser to the growers in the district. He has erected an irrigation plant, and so is to some extent independent of the dry seasons.
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Description source: The Queenslander, 3 March 1906

Image source: Queensland State Archives,

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Pastoralism has left a physical heritage from the initial squatting period of the 1840s to the present day. These homestead complexes are located across the State and vary from those now on the outskirts of expanding cities like Rockhampton, Toowoomba and the metropolitan sprawl of southeast Queensland to the remote (Thallon) and very remote (Birdsville). There are also many places with a richly layered history but the physical heritage values are no longer intact due to relocation, adandonment, fire, vandalism and ultimately decay.
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Colonial buildings include Cressbrook, Tarong, Gracemere, Nindooinbah, Burrandowan, Eidsvold, Booubyjan, Kilcoy, Canning Downs, Mount Abundance. Few survive after World War I when lightweight prefabrication and materials had an impact on rural homestead maintenance and new designs. Interestingly, the tradition of slab building continued because of the shortage of manpower and materials during World War I as illustrated by the sawn timber slab construction

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Mount Margaret Station

Mount Margaret Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a sheep station and more recently as a cattle station. It is located about 98 kilometres west of Quilpie and 177 kilometres south of Windorah in Queensland. The property has extensive and reliable water supply with 80 kilometres of double frontage on the Wilson River and associated creeks.

Mount Margaret was once Queensland’s and Australia’s largest sheep station, occupying an area of 599,000 hectares (1,480,161 acres) which makes it larger than the nation of Brunei. The station was sold in 2010 for $12 million; it was free of stock at the time but included all plant and equipment and was sold to New South Wales cattle producer Kilburnie Pastoral Co.

In 1937 the Peel River Pastoral Company who had acquired the station in 1925 sold the property for £50,000 to the Killeen Brothers; at this

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Laying Out A Homestead.

Independently altogether of the style of architecture adopted, says the “Sydney Morning Herald,” a great deal of skill may be exercised in laying out a new country homestead. When the settler makes a start in the country for the first time, he frequently commits great blunders for which he is sorry afterwards, but takes good care not to repeat them should he happen to move to a new selection a second or even a third time.
The way in which a man arranges his buildings and fences is generally a good or bad omen of his future success and prosperity. If you see a selector commence operations on a new building by planting a shed here, another there, and the next anywhere, depend upon it he is lacking in the qualities which go to make a successful farmer.
It is not always

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Climbing Plants In The Homestead Garden.

The growing of climbing plants is a subject to which, as a rule, a great deal of thought is not given by the home homesteader, and although we often see these plants about that are more or less taken as a matter of course and until seen gay with bloom are practically forgotten or unattended.
There are many beautiful flowers in this group of plants, and the uses to which they can be put are many and varied. There are, for instance, amonsts these plants those which will cling to walls, fences, and other subjects without the aid of wire and other supports, while others needs something through which to twine their growth to keep them up.
Some of the uses to which these plants can be put are the covering of unsightly out-buildings, or fences, or the sides of walls where

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Trees On The Farm

Shelter belts about the homestead serve a dual purpose. They increase the comfort of the dwelling, making it a much more pleasant place to live in, and also provide a much more attractive setting or background for the buildings. They may also be used for screening off unsightly buildings, stockyards, and other places.
Very little attention is usually given to the planning of the homestead and its surroundings, but consideration of the needs of the locality, combined with a proper tree planting scheme, would add considerably to the comfort of the one and benefit of the others. For instance, where ground is not expensive, a 5-acre timber reserve could be planted on the western side of the homestead. This would not only cut off the bleak or hot westerlies, but would form a source of timber supply for all farm needs, apart from

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

“Away Down South”
(From A Correspondent).

Pimpama, August 10 – Very little concerning the doings in this thriving neighborhood appears in your columns, but perhaps a few remarks will not be out of place. It is little use commenting upon the state of the weather or the crops, for we all know how sharp the frosts have been, so I will, with your permission, cut that subject short until it gets warmer.
I am very glad to find that selectors are at last mustering courage to explore the upper regions of this and the Hotham river, where an abundance of good land is to be had. There have been a good many homesteads and some larger blocks taken up lately, and I trust that in the course of two or three years, this will be as flourishing a district as any in the colony ; but of course,

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Retro Station For Grain.

Clermont, May 21 – The Australian Mercantile Land and Finance Company’s property, Retro, 18 miles east of Clermont, has been acquired by the Queensland British Food Corporation.
Retro contains 71,600 acres freehold and joins Peak Downs grain farm.
Retro was originally taken up by Messrs. Archer, of Gracemere, in 1855, then it passed to Mr. Gordon Sandeman and was working as an outstation of Gordon Downs. R Towns and Company were the next proprietors and the station was formed in 1870. The only improvements then were a hut and a horse paddock. The homestead, wool shed and fencing were all erected in 1870.
Retro then contained 200 square miles, 62,500 acres freehold being acquired by preemptive rights or auction, the remainder being held under lease. Retro then carried 72,000 sheep, but marsupials were very troublesome and 70 miles of wire netting were erected, at an

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Great Barrier Reef lies along the east coast of Queensland, from the Gulf of Papua to Lady Elliot Island, a coral cay 100 km north-east of Bundaberg. The Barrier Reef is a World Heritage Area (1981) It includes about 2900 unconnected coral reefs, 300 reef islands or sand cays, of which nearly one-third are vegetated. There are also outlying continental islands such as in the Whitsunday and Lindeman groups. Present-day reefs are about 8500 years old. They sit above layers of reef and alluvium dating back at least 2 million years.

Lindeman Island is about 20 sq km and was occupied for livestock grazing in 1906. A homestead and woolshed were refurbished for tourist accommodation in 1923, and grass-hut bungalows were added. Medium-rise apartments brought accommodation to about 300 guests (1990).

Description source: Queensland Places

Image source: Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 906

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