Fassifern Homestead

Fassifern Homestead is a single-storeyed timber residence erected to replace an earlier homestead on the same site. The Fassifern run, first taken up by John Cameron in 1841–1842, was one of the earliest licensed runs in the Moreton pastoral district, which was proclaimed on 10 May 1842. In 1857 Fassifern became part of the Wienholt family's complex and ultimately extensive Queensland pastoral empire and in 1869 was amalgamated with the adjacent runs of Moogerah and Tarome as the consolidated Fassifern run. Although from the 1870s used principally to fatten cattle from the Wiehnolt family's western Queensland properties, Fassifern was renowned also for its Clydesdale horse stud. Edward Wienholt, who served as Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the Western Downs 1870–1873 and for the Darling Downs 1873–1875, is generally recognised as the driving force in the creation of the family's pastoral empire. By 1888 he and his partners held in the Moreton and Darling Downs districts alone, and in 1889 The Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Ltd was formed to manage the Wienholt family's Queensland acquisitions. Their land dealings were complex, extensive, and largely managed from outside Australia. Arnold Wienholt retired to Switzerland in the late 1870s. Arthur Wienholt returned to England with his family in the 1870s, as did Edward Wienholt with his family in 1880. However, Edward continued to make regular trips to Australia to oversee the family's property interests. Like Maryvale, for many years Fassifern had been used for fattening cattle from the Wienholt family's western stations, and was noted for its Clydesdale horse stud. Very little of the Fassifern freehold was sold at the August auction and in September 1904 the Wienholt Estates Company offered the Fassifern Estate to the Queensland government for repurchase. The Land Commissioners who inspected the property in May 1905 found the estate well-suited to agricultural settlement, being close to the railway, with good soil, the fences in good repair, well watered, and free of noxious weeds and ticks. The manager resided in a "good building" (i.e. Fassifern Homestead) seven miles from the rail head at Munbilla. Despite the favourable report the Queensland Government took no action. In January 1906 the Wienholt Estates Company again put up the Kent's Lagoon and Moogerah paddocks for sale at auction, and offered the balance of the estate to the government at per acre. Again, the estate proved difficult to sell at auction to farmers who believed that the bulk of the estate would be repurchased soon, and again the government took no action in this matter. Finally, in December 1908 a deputation of MLAs in support of the Fassifern repurchase approached the Minister for Lands (Digby Denham), but in January 1909 the Queensland government wrote to the Wienholt Estates Company firmly rejecting the offer. In 1908 the Queensland government did repurchase the Wienholt's Maryvale estate and the manager of Maryvale for nearly 40 years, Edward Ormond Waters Hill, then took up the management of Fassifern. EOW Hill was another Wienholt cousin and brother of HE Hill who had managed Fassifern in the 1880s and early 1890s; he was also a shareholder in and director of The Wienholt Estates Company. Also in 1908, Arnold Wienholt (son of Edward Wienholt) and his cousin Daniel Wienholt (son of Arthur Wienholt) were appointed respectively General Manager and Company Secretary of The Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Ltd, with instructions to oversee the winding up of the Company's estates in Queensland. In September 1909 they offered the bulk of the Fassifern estate for sale at auction, at which time EOW Hill acquired the Fassifern Homestead on , together with about of grazing land. In 1916 the homestead, located on Reynolds Creek about from Engelsburg (later Kalbar), was described as having "replaced the original house some years ago" and as "a comfortable wooden building, with water and gas laid on. It is surrounded with lawns and flower- beds, and has an orchard, vineyard, and vegetable garden attached" (Fox 1919:325). EOW Hill resided at Fassifern Homestead until . In 1927 title to the homestead on about was transferred to Timothy Dwyer. Changes to the homestead made during Mr Dwyer's occupancy include the removal s of an adjacent early kitchen and staff building and the extension of the south-east corner of Fassifern Homestead to accommodate an internal kitchen. Following Mr Dwyer's death in 1939, the property passed to his son, Patrick Francis Dwyer, who with his wife Joie ran a grazing farm from Fassifern Homestead until his death in 1980. Patrick was buried in the Fassifern Homestead yard. Until 2014, the house, on a substantially reduced parcel of land of just over 6,000 sq.m, remained the property of his widow, Joie Elwyn Dwyer (a former long-term Boonah Shire Councillor). During the 1970s changes were made to the north-facing wing of the house. The timber arch dividing its two rooms was removed to create one long room and the entire corresponding length of northern verandah was enclosed. The French doors opening out onto this verandah were removed and replaced with timber-framed sliding doors with large single lights. The interior spaces were lined with fibrous-cement sheeting, but the original timber linings were retained beneath this. Other changes to the house made by Patrick and Joie Dwyer include later linings to other rooms in the house; the enclosure of part of the western verandah on the north-south wing as a bathroom and laundry; the enclosure of the north-east corner of the verandahs as an office; and the insertion of an ensuite in one of the bedrooms. == Description ==

Fassifern Homestead on an allotment of approximately 6,000 sq m is sited on an area of slightly elevated land on the western bank of Reynolds Creek, approximately south of where it joins Warrill Creek. About to the west of the homestead, the Boonah-Fassifern Road branches off from the Cunningham Highway, very near to where the town of Fassifern had been surveyed in 1856. The small extant townships of Kalbar and Boonah lie to the north-east and east respectively. To the south-east the escarpment of Mount French and the volcanic landscape of the northern section of the Moogerah Peaks National Park overlook the site. Built to an L-shaped plan the outer faces of which are oriented to the north and east, Fassifern Homestead has a bungalow-style hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The southern projection of the L ends in a half-hip centred beneath which is a small gabled porch with timber framing, later lattice infill, and timber stairs. Two brick chimneystacks (one of which is a double chimney) pierce the roof ridge running parallel with the north-facing wing of the house. Four decorative sheet metal roof ventilators straddle the two roof ridges, two along each line. They consist of two cylinders surmounted by an overhanging low-pitched cone with a highly decorative edge and capping piece. Timber-framed, with exterior walls clad variously with two widths of chamferboard and weatherboards, the house is raised off the gently sloping ground on ant-capped timber stumps. The spaces between the perimeter stumps have been in-filled with painted, slatted timber screens. The earliest discernible plan of the homestead provided for two perpendicular wings of single rooms bordered by verandahs approximately two and a half metres wide. Over time the verandahs were enclosed at various locations. A small room was enclosed on the southern corner of the north-facing wing on its western end opposite what is known as the maid's or governess' room; leaving a narrow gap to allow access between the remaining verandah spaces, which are accessed by timber stairs and bounded by balustrades consisting of top and bottom rails and dowel balusters. The verandah on the western side of the southern projection was enclosed; making what is now a laundry and bathroom that are separated from the original outer face of the house by a narrow corridor less than a metre wide. Extensive changes have been made to the north-facing wing of the house. Its two rooms focused on each fireplace are now one long room and the entire corresponding length of verandah is enclosed. The patchwork of exterior wall cladding also gives some indication of how the house has been altered over time. The larger chamferboards, approximately wide, mostly line what were the exterior wall faces and are visible on the eastern verandah looking to Reynolds Creek, on the southern facade under the half-hip, and to the corridors created by the partial enclosure of the west-facing verandahs. Narrower, more recent, chamferboards clad the enclosed verandah on the north-facing wing of the house. Elsewhere there are a number of facades finished with weatherboards: on the exterior walls of the small room on the westernmost projection of the north-facing wing of the house, along the western elevation of the wing projecting south, and to the kitchen on the eastern side. A number of original exterior French doors and windows remain in the house; these were timber-framed double doors with low waists and upper lights, and timber-framed double-hung sash windows. The double doors opening out onto the length of enclosed verandah facing north have been removed and replaced with timber-framed sliding doors with large single lights. The double doors at either end of this space have been removed, the openings widened and similar timber-framed sliders inserted. Original double doors open out of the two central rooms sandwiched between the north-facing wing and the end room of the southern projection of the plan, but there is evidence that some have been moved from their original locations. Over the remaining double-hung sashes are a number of decorative curved hoods, the sides of which are formed by timber boards with rounded ends pierced with small holes. Inside there are three rooms where the original beaded tongue-in-groove timber wall and ceiling lining is visible: at the end of the southern projection of the plan and beside this to the north, as well as in the small room formed at the joint of the two wings of the house. The first two rooms are painted, while the third is not. It is reputed to be the lumber room and would have provided access between the western length of verandah and the formal living and dining rooms of the north-facing wing. Where the original lining remains there are simple timber cornices and picture rails, however later lengths of timber beading have replaced the skirting boards. The wall and ceiling linings are largely fibrous cement sheeting in the private and utilitarian rooms, with an area of more recent vertical timber tongue-in-groove boarding to the west-facing laundry and bathroom. The rooms changed during the 1970s renovation are lined with unpainted sheeting held within a framework of flat metal. The floors are lined with carpet, vinyl or tiles. Only on the unenclosed verandahs is the original timber boarding visible. The ceiling on the western verandah is unlined. The homestead is centrally located within the allotment, the boundary of which is marked on all sides except the northern one with a low, painted post-and-rail fence. The block is grassed and features a number of mature trees, as well as more recent shrubs, mostly around the perimeter, and a number of garden beds close to the house, most particularly in front of the east-facing verandah. In the garden bed adjacent to the northern elevation of the house is an early grape vine, which possibly dates to the early 1900s. On the northern edge of the site, toward the western corner of the block, is a bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii), which is one of three visible in a number of photographs dating from the late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. In the south-west corner is the grave of Patrick Dwyer marked with a stone/concrete memorial and surrounded by a number of trees. There are two garages sited at the edges of the allotment: one entered off the easement near the grave and another near the south-eastern corner of the house accessed from the east. Both have gable roofs; one is clad with vertical timber boarding and the other with vertical steel cladding. The latter garage is later and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. There is a fenced pool in the north-east corner of the site (also not of cultural heritage significance). Four painted iron gates open through the perimeter fence line: a wide double one near the north-western corner of the site, two single ones that align with the doors opening out of either end of the north-facing wing of the house and the respective verandah stairs, and another that aligns with the south-facing porch. The single gate that opens through the eastern boundary fence sits near a large stand of mature bougainvillea, which is on an adjoining allotment. The 1846 grave of Margaret Coulson, marked with an engraved headstone, is located approximately to the south of the single gate that opens through the southern boundary fence, again on a separate allotment to the homestead block. == Heritage listing ==

Fassifern Homestead was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 November 2008 having satisfied the following criteria. '''The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.''' Fassifern Homestead, constructed by the late 1880s with late 1890s renovations, is important in demonstrating the pattern of pastoral consolidation in Queensland as pastoral lessees gradually gained freehold title to large blocks of prime grazing and agricultural land, especially in southern Queensland. The simply-adorned but substantially-constructed timber residence replaced an earlier Fassifern Homestead on the same site (established by 1846) and demonstrates the transformation from the mid-1870s of the consolidated Fassifern run, established under occupation license in the 1840s as the runs of Fassifern, Moogerah and Tarome, into a substantial freehold of approximately . '''The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.''' From 1857 the Fassifern run was associated with the prominent Wienholt family (pastoralists, business persons and politicians) and became an integral element in a chain of Queensland pastoral properties acquired by them and their business partners from 1849. From the 1870s the consolidated Fassifern run was used principally to fatten cattle from the family's western Queensland properties, and along with the neighbouring Maryvale run on the Darling Downs (the first of the Wienholt acquisitions in Queensland), was renowned for its Clydesdale horse stud. As the principal residence on an extensive freehold estate, Fassifern Homestead has a special association with the Wienholt family's consolidation of their wealth in Queensland. Of the 48 Queensland runs held by the family by 1876, Fassifern was situated closest to Brisbane, and was home to a number of the Wienholt family over two generations, and to their cousins, Henry Edward Hill and Edward Ormond Waters Hill, who managed Fassifern and Maryvale stations for many years. == References ==