Situated on the picturesque Darling Downs near Dalby, Jimbour House is perhaps the grandest country home ever constructed in Queensland.
While the fortunes of its owners have risen and fallen, each left their mark on the legacy of the stately sandstone homestead that has stood for nearly 150 years, and whose rich history continues to be enjoyed by visitors to this day.
Station hands at Jimbour Station on the Darling Downs, ca. 1880,
The early days
The land where Jimbour House stands today was claimed by Henry Dennis on behalf of his employer Richard Todd Scougall and by 1842 they had established a pastoral station flock of 11,000 sheep and some 700 cattle. Scougall's ownership of Jimbour was short lived as he ran into financial difficulties and in 1843 the station was sold to Thomas Bell with “sheep, cattle and all improvements” for £3,200.
Such pastoral claims were emblematic of the speed at which huge swathes of the Darling Downs were staked out for similar stations. Jimbour Station alone once spread across more than 120,000 hectares.
The land of course was already occupied by Traditional Owners, in this case members of the Baranggum Aboriginal language group, and the region was not exempt from the frontier violence that occurred between colonial settlers and First Nations groups throughout South East Queensland.
Jimbour House, ca. 1880.
Made local: the construction of Jimbour House
The first permanent dwellings built on Jimbour station included basic huts, a wooden slab house and, in 1868, a two-storey house built from blue stone and cedar, which (minus its top storey) still stands today as the Blue Stone Building.
In 1872 Thomas Bell died, and the property was inherited by his son Joshua (later Sir Joshua) Peter Bell. In 1874, construction of Jimbour House began, and the ‘lofty and handsome sandstone mansion of two stories’, was completed by early 1877.
Apart from the Welsh slate used on the roof, all the materials for the house were sourced locally, including gas produced by coal from a mine on the property.
Cedar was obtained from the Bunya Mountains and sawn and dressed at Cattle Creek. Other local timbers used included spotted gum, blue gum, ironbark, bunya, cypress, hoop-pine and satin wood. Sandstone was obtained from a quarry at Bunjinnie, some six miles from Jimbour House.
Ten stonemasons, nine carpenters and a number of labourers were employed in the construction and the total workforce including quarrying, timber getting, carting and handling of materials was around 200. The cost of the building was some £30,000.
This image appears in The Queenslander, 12 December 1925, p. 23. It lists those pictured as including Mr and Mrs Russell, residents of Jimbour House, the Mayor of Dalby and Mrs Garrow, and Mr H. Ensor, sen.
The legacy of Jimbour House
In 1881, Joshua Bell merged his pastoral holdings to form the Darling Downs and Western Lands Company. ‘This,’ according to Jimbour’s official history, ‘proved the undoing of the Bell Family fortunes.’
A period of neglect followed for before Wilfred Adams Russell and Millicent Russell purchased Jimbour House and its surrounding property in 1923. The Russell family remain custodians of the historic property to this day, ensuring its preservation and continued relevance. Under the stewardship of the Russells, Jimbour House has become a cultural and tourism hub, welcoming visitors from across Australia and beyond.
View of Jimbour House on Queensland's Darling Downs in 1928
Jimbour House fast facts
- According to the Queensland Heritage register, Jimbour House is ‘the only really grand country house in the English manner to be built in this State’, grander and larger than other notable homesteads including Talgai, Glengallan and Westbrook.
- Florence Nightingale’s actual bedside table sits in the Jimbour House drawing room! Nightingale was in fact Mrs Russell’s godmother.
- Jimbour Station was the birthplace of Aboriginal athlete Charles Samuel, one of the greatest Australian sprinters of his time
- Jimbour briefly became a hub of scientific activity in 1882 when teams of astronomers converged to observe the transit of Venus.
- Every 2 years the grounds of Jimbour House are transformed into an open-air theatre for Opera at Jimbour, presented by QMF (Queensland Music Festival).
- Jimbour House has featured in many advertisements, movies and television series, most recently as the stately mansion of fictional crime syndicate kingpin Tytus Broz (Anthony LaPaglia) in the Netflix adaptation of Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe.
Plinth with large frog on the corner of the swimming poll at Jimbour Station homestead 2013
A warm welcome
Charles Russell, writing in Jimbour: its history and development, says ‘Jimbour House at one time was described, with a fair degree of accuracy, as the Mecca of civilisation on the Darling Downs.’
While this claim may be a touch hyperbolic, there is no doubt the halls and grounds of Jimbour House continue to offer hospitality to all who visit. Motorhomes are as warmly received as wedding parties, making Jimbour House a popular destination for road trippers after a high tea and history enthusiasts alike.
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