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Cressbrook Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead at off Cressbrook-Caboombah Road, Cressbrook, Somerset Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1841 to 1914. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. == History == Cressbrook Homestead was constructed as the head station of the Cressbrook Run which was taken up by the McConnel family in 1841.〔 David Cannon McConnel arrived in Sydney from Britain in February 1840 where he purchased sheep and started searching for a suitable pastoral lease. His search took him northward to the Moreton Bay region recently opened for selection after the closure of the penal colony. After this event, many eager British immigrants, including the Leslie Brothers, Wickham, the Bigge Brothers and John Balfour were selecting land in the Moreton Bay area. McConnel pressed northward past the rich Darling Downs into the Brisbane River Valley which became the next centre of pastoral development after land on the Darling Downs was fully selected. The Brisbane River Valley was explored by both Cunningham and Patrick Logan in the late 1820s and many squatters took up land in the early 1840s.〔 On 15 July 1841 David McConnel took up 240 square miles of land in the Valley, with the Brisbane River and a creek running through. David McConnel was the son of James McConnel who founded a machine making company in Manchester after which, in 1835, he became the owner of the long established and Cressbrook Mill in Derbyshire where lace thread was produced. It was here that the McConnels established their family home and it was to commemorate this place that David McConnel named his Australian property and the creek running through the property. Within one year, Francis and Frederic Bigge established the adjoining Mount Brisbane Station and six months after this John Balfour took up land on the other side of Cressbrook for his station, Colinton.〔 McConnel established Cressbrook as a sheep farm but found the land more suitable for Shorthorn cattle which were introduced by 1845. He constructed a timber slab house in 1841 but because the location was deemed unsuitable another two-roomed slab house was constructed with verandah overlooking the Brisbane River to the north. Two Bunya pine trees were planted by McConnel at the west end of this verandah. The slab hut and one of the Bunya pines survives to this day; the hut now forming the eastern wing of the principal house.〔 David McConnel returned to Britain in 1847 where he married Mary McLeod of Edinburgh on 25 April 1847. Mary's parents were against the pair returning to Australia and therefore the newly weds settled in Nottinghamshire, though financial difficulties at Cressbrook, which had been left in the hands of managers, necessitated their return in 1849. They returned aboard ''Chaseley'', one of the three boats chartered by the Rev. Dr. John Dunmore Lang for the transport of Presbyterians to the new colony of Queensland. Having arrived, David and Mary McConnel settled in Brisbane, establishing the house, ''Toogoolawah'' (now known as Bulimba House).〔 On 1 January 1851 David McConnel's brother, John McConnel, joined in partnership with his brother and they purchased Durundur Station, previously belonging to the Archers, who moved to the Burnett region. In 1851 the McConnels owned 400 cattle and 10,000 sheep on both of the Brisbane River Valley properties.〔 David McConnel returned to England with his seriously ill wife in 1854 and they did not return to Cressbrook until 1862, when the partnership between David and John McConnel was dissolved with John McConnel taking exclusive rights at Durundur and David maintaining the ownership of Cressbrook. Upon David and Mary's return to Cressbrook extensive alterations were made to the slab hut, which was from an early date known as the House, to distinguish it from the Cottage which was built nearby. This addition to the House comprised the construction of a timber section, two storeyed in part and generally larger in scale than the wing to which it was abutted. A kitchen wing, another timber slab building, was added to the south of the House.〔 As well another residence was constructed at Cressbrook, the previously mentioned Cottage which was built further west of the House and overlooking the Brisbane River and adjacent flood plain. The Cottage was unusual as it was a timber framed building with brick nogging. Although few records exist to suggest who built this or when, the peculiarly German method of construction suggests that there may have been a German influence, and it is known that David McConnel could speak German. The building was thought to have been constructed in the 1860s and was used as a residence for various farm managers and, later, the families of McConnel children.〔 This construction work brought many people to the station, ''"splitters, sawyers, carpenters, builders, bricklayers"''. Along with the farmhands and managers, these additional people created a small township at Cressbrook and attempts were made by the McConnels to establish a school for the children, one of the first in the Brisbane River Valley, and a library for the men in one of the rooms of the Cottage. Weekly Presbyterian church services were held in the recently constructed addition to the House.〔 Mary McConnel and her daughter, also Mary, wrote memoirs about Cressbrook, describing the buildings, gardens and generally the life on the station. Younger Mary's recollection of the Cottage includes, ''"Through the hand-gate in front of the entrance porch (of the House) was a small paddock which divided the House from the Cottage; it had swings and a few silky oaks. The Cottage was of brick with a steep shingled roof; two or three gentlemen...were lodged under the efficient charge of a Scottish working-housekeeper"''. She continues on to describe living on the verandah of the House,〔 ''Indoor occupation was varied and constant. One says indoor - yet it was carried out for the most part on the wide verandah, shaded from the sun by blinds. These came from Java or Japan; they were made of long strips of cane painted green and rolled up in the evening by cords on small pulleys. On the verandah peaches were stoned for jam, oranges peeled for marmalade and quinces carefully paired and cored for jelly. There was a wide table where the many kerosene lamps were washed and trimmed every morning and set ready to be carried to their respective rooms at night. There was the indispensable treadle sewing machine, and in a cool corner, in a draught, stood a filter with a tap and a tin pannikin, near it a large porous water-jar swathed in damp flannel for evaporation.''〔 In 1873 David Cannon McConnel retired from managing Cressbrook and one of his sons, James Henry (Henry) assumed responsibility. David and Mary moved to Witton Manor at Indooroopilly on the Brisbane River, which was later moved to the Tighnabruaich house site, and is now demolished. From her new situation in Brisbane, Mary McConnel was influential in establishing one of the first children's hospitals in Australia which was opened on 11 March 1878. Soon after this on 16 June 1885, David died in London where he had gone to have an operation.〔 A partnership had been formed previously which saw Cressbrook owned by a company formed by David and his four sons, Henry, David Rose, Eric Walter and Edward John and their sister Mary McLeod Banks (née McConnel). This company, without David, continued to run Cressbrook for many years after his death. Through the 1880s Government resumptions of land for closer settlement reduced the Cressbrook holding until it was about 4 and 3/4 square miles.〔 In 1890 a condensed milk factory was established on the Cressbrook run by Henry McConnel and milk for this was supplied by a dairy at Cressbrook and many other surrounding farms, carved from the Cressbrook property, of which there were about thirty by 1910. The milk factory was sold, with 3000 acres, being about four farms, to the Nestles Anglo-Swiss Company in 1906, as finances continued in an unsettled way with the dissolution of the partnership and the purchase, by Henry McConnel of the Cressbrook Homestead and some 14 000 acres surrounding the residences and outbuildings by December 1907.〔 In 1901 a timber chapel, designed by renowned architect Robin Smith Dods was constructed, to the west of the principal residences and on a prominent position as one entered the property. The chapel was ecumenical, serving the religions of all creeds of the station workers and was built to commemorate the silver wedding anniversary of Henry and Madge McConnel. This was one of Dods' early ecclesiastical buildings, later he designed several other timber churches and chapels including Saint Andrews Anglican Church (1912) nearby at Toogoolawah, as well as many prominent masonry buildings as the Anglican Diocesan Architect. In about 1914, after the death of Henry, his wife organised for alterations to the House also designed by Dods, integrating the disparate verandahs lining the northern face of the building, with a large open pavilion, as well as some internal work.〔 A detailed plan of Cressbrook in 1910 was prepared by Kenneth McConnel for a publication by him, Planning the Australian Homestead (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1947). This details all of the buildings and structures within the vicinity of the principal residences and shows this area as a small township which included numerous outbuildings and homes for workers and their families. Provision was made for bachelors' quarters, married men's quarters, single men's quarters, a school house, chapel, various stores and shops along with stables, killing shed, milking baths, bull stables, hay shed, wagon shed and draft stables and cattle dip. Of these structures and buildings, many survive including two large tank stands, the draft stables, an explosives store, parts of the cattle dip, one of the bachelors' quarters and one of the married men's quarters.〔 Cressbrook continues through the twentieth century as a working pastoral station in the hands of the McConnel family.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cressbrook Homestead」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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