Bowen River Hotel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Bowen River Hotel |
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Bowen River Hotel, 2007
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| Location | Strathbowen-Leichhardt Range Road, Mount Wyatt, Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Design period | 1840s - 1860s (mid-19th century) |
| Built | c. 1865 |
| Official name: Bowen River Hotel, Heidelberg Inn | |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 21 October 1992 |
| Reference no. | 600042 |
| Significant period | c. 1865 (fabric) 1974 (historical) |
| Significant components | fence/wall - perimeter |
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The Bowen River Hotel is a very old hotel located on Strathbowen-Leichhardt Range Road, near Mount Wyatt, in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland, Australia. It was built around 1865. This historic building is also known as Heidelberg Inn. It was officially added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992, which means it's a special place protected for its history. Today, it still works as a hotel!
Contents
A Look Back in Time
The Hotel's Early Days
The area around the Bowen River Hotel was first settled by Europeans in 1862. Two men, Phillip Sommer and John Harvey, were among the first to start farms there. They set up a sheep and cattle farm on a piece of land called Heidelberg. This land had been claimed earlier but not used.
By 1865, the Bowen River Hotel was open for business. It was built on the main path that people used to travel to Central Western Queensland. This path went through a region called the Kennedy District. Records from the time suggest that two hotels were built in this area around the same time. One was called the Heidelberg Inn, and the other was the Bowen River Hotel.
A Special Old Building
In 1974, the hotel building was given to the National Trust of Queensland. This group helps protect important historical places. Some parts of the hotel were fixed up at that time. For many years after the 1970s, the building was left open.
However, the hotel was renovated and reopened in 2003. It has been running as a hotel ever since. A book about the hotel's story, called The Bowen River Saga: The Story of the Bowen River Hotel, was published in 1973.
What Does It Look Like?
Building Style and Materials
The Bowen River Hotel was built in the 1860s. It was made from local timber, which means wood found nearby. The roof was originally made of bark. The hotel is actually two separate buildings. They are connected by a covered walkway.
The way the hotel was built shows amazing "bush carpentry" skills. This means people used simple tools and local materials to build it. The wooden pieces were joined together very carefully using wooden pegs instead of nails. The main building has a verandah (a covered porch) on three sides. The smaller building has a small verandah off its main room.
Outside the Hotel
Both buildings are raised up a little bit off the ground on low stumps. Some of these stumps even have "ant caps." These are metal plates that stop ants from crawling up into the building. The floors are made of timber, not just dirt.
The walls of the hotel are made from horizontal slabs of split timber. The roofs are hipped, meaning they slope down on all sides. The verandah roofs are called skillions, which are single-sloping roofs. All the roofs are now made of corrugated iron.
A fence made of posts and rails surrounds what used to be the hotel's front yard. The hotel is in a rural area. You can see white cedar and Burdekin plum trees near the hotel. There are also oleander plants along the front fence.
Why Is It Special?
The Bowen River Hotel was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. This means it's recognized as an important historical site for several reasons.
A Piece of Queensland's Story
The hotel is important because it shows how Queensland grew and developed. It played a role in the early farming and settlement of the Kennedy Region and Central Western Queensland.
A Rare Building Style
This hotel is one of the very few old country hotels still standing that were built using "bush carpentry" techniques. This makes it quite unique and special.
Showing How Buildings Changed
The Bowen River Hotel is a great example of an early type of timber building. Its style helped lead to the development of a unique way of building in Queensland.
Clever Building Skills
The hotel also shows a high level of creative and technical skill from the time it was built. It's rare to find such an old country hotel that was constructed with these clever bush carpentry methods.
