Cottage (68 Stephen Street) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cottage, 68 Stephen Street
Cottage, 1994
Location	68 Stephen Street, South Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Design period	1840s–1860s (mid-19th century)
Built	1860s–1920s
Queensland Heritage Register
Official name: Cottage (68 Stephen Street)
Type	state heritage (built)
Designated	20 February 1995
Reference no.	601313
Significant period	1860s, 1910s–1920s (fabric) 1860s (historical)
Significant components	extension/s or addition/s, residential accommodation – main house, furniture/fittings
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68 Stephen Street is a special old house in South Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. It's called a heritage-listed cottage, which means it's important to history. This cottage is one of the oldest homes still standing in Toowoomba.

The land it sits on was part of the very first areas divided up when Toowoomba was being planned. The house was built around the mid-1860s for Charles Taylor, who dug wells for a living. What makes this cottage really unique is that it's made from a reddish rock called laterite. This material is very unusual for buildings in Toowoomba.

Originally, the house was a single-storey stone cottage with four rooms. Around the 1910s, its original fabric ceilings were replaced, and the outside of the cottage was covered with a smooth layer (rendered). Later, in the 1920s, a new bathroom and a kitchen/dining area were added to the back. A separate toilet and laundry building was also built behind the cottage. Because of its history and unique features, 68 Stephen Street was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 20 February 1995.

A Look Back: The History of the Cottage

This single-storey stone cottage was built around the mid-1860s. It replaced an older wooden building that was there before. The land was part of a larger area bought by William Shuttlewood and Charles Taylor in the late 1850s. The cottage helps us understand how Toowoomba grew from those early days.

How Toowoomba Began

The first settlement in this area started at Drayton in the early 1840s. A general store opened there in 1843. People in Drayton wanted a proper town, so a survey was done in 1849. The government surveyor, James Charles Burnett, was told to find land for farms and gardens. He chose a swampy area about three to four miles from Drayton. This spot, where two swampy creeks met, became the start of Toowoomba.

This "Drayton Swamp Agricultural Reserve" included 12 land sections. They were bordered by a swamp and what are now Bridge, West, and Stephen streets.

Early Land Owners

Six of these "Swamp allotments" were first offered for sale in November 1849. However, it took until 1853 for all of them to be sold. William Shuttlewood bought Suburban Allotment One (SA 1), which was the southernmost of these swamp areas. More land was surveyed in 1856. Portion 46, a suburban farm next to Shuttlewood's land, was bought by Shuttlewood and Charles Taylor in July 1858.

By late 1857, the name "Toowoomba" slowly replaced "The Swamp" as the town grew bigger. When Toowoomba officially became a town in November 1860, it was much larger than Drayton. William Shuttlewood was very involved in Toowoomba's growth. He helped decide the town's boundaries, possibly because his land was near the proposed southern edge. In January 1861, Shuttlewood was one of the first nine leaders elected to Toowoomba's first town council. When he passed away in 1894, people remembered him as one of the first to live in Toowoomba. He had watched the town grow and was very interested in its success.

Charles Taylor and the Cottage

We don't know much about Charles Taylor. He bought land in "The Swamp" during the 1850s. In 1857, he bought half of Shuttlewood's SA 1 land. Taylor's name was on a local newspaper petition in 1859, right after Shuttlewood's. Taylor's will said he was a "well-sinker" living on Stephen Street.

In November 1859, Shuttlewood and Taylor divided their land. Taylor got the western part of Portion 46. Even though Shuttlewood's name isn't on the land papers after this, town records show him as the "owner" until the mid-1860s. There was an older wooden house on the land at that time.

Taylor took out a loan on the land in February 1866 to divide it into smaller blocks. Some of these blocks were sold in April that year. James Jennings paid a deposit for the block where the cottage is now. His name is in the town records for 1868–69. However, it seems Jennings never paid the rest of the money for the land.

Building with Laterite

A new building, the stone cottage we see today, was built by the late 1860s. Town records from that time mention a four-room stone cottage. The stone used is laterite. This is a reddish rock that's rich in iron and aluminum. It forms when rocks weather in warm, wet places. When laterite is first dug up, it's soft and easy to cut. But once it's exposed to the air, it dries and becomes very hard and strong.

There are large amounts of laterite in Toowoomba, including on the "Old Toll Bar Road" on the side of the Main Range. While we don't know exactly how many other buildings in Toowoomba are made of laterite, this cottage is thought to be quite rare.

Charles Taylor died in June 1866. His estate was complicated and wasn't fully settled until 1902. However, records show that people continued to live in the cottage from the 1860s to the 1900s. The land blocks from Taylor's estate started to be sold in 1903.

Changes Over Time

Ellen Clubley bought the cottage's land in 1903. Since then, it has changed owners several times. In the early 1910s, the ceilings, which were originally made of calico fabric, were covered with new material. Around the same time, the outside of the cottage was covered with a smooth render and painted.

In the 1920s, a new bathroom and a kitchen/dining area were added to the back of the cottage. A separate building for the toilet and laundry was also built at the rear. The current owners bought the cottage in 1975.

What the Cottage Looks Like

68 Stephen Street is a small, single-storey cottage. It's made of laterite stone that has been covered with a smooth layer (rendered) and painted. It has a steeply pitched hipped roof made of corrugated iron. The front of the house faces Stephen Street.

Outside Features

The front of the house is symmetrical, meaning it looks the same on both sides. It has a verandah with a corrugated iron skillion roof, which is a single sloping roof. This roof is held up by wooden posts. The verandah has a wooden floor and a wooden fence-like railing (batten balustrade). The main entrance in the middle has a wooden door with glass panels. On each side of the door, there's a sash window.

On the eastern side of the house, there's a brick chimney. The windows are wooden sash windows with arched tops. Even though the laterite stone is covered, you can still see where the stones were laid in rows (stone coursing) on the southwest corner. You can also see the rough, bumpy surface of the laterite stone underneath. The walls look a bit wavy and have different textures. A wooden addition is attached to the back of the house. It has a gabled corrugated iron roof. There's also another separate wooden building further back.

Inside Features

Inside, the cottage has four main rooms. There's a central hallway at the back. The walls are the rendered and painted laterite stone, and they also show the wavy, textured look of the stone. The ceilings are made of wooden boards. The rooms have narrow wooden skirtings (boards along the bottom of the walls), and the doors have wooden frames. The room in the northeast has a large fireplace with storage spaces on either side. The floors are wooden boards, covered with carpet.

The addition at the back of the house holds the kitchen and bathroom. It has an old stove built into the wall. The bathroom has a terrazzo bath and sink. The walls and ceilings in this part are covered with hardboard sheets with wooden strips. The separate building at the back contains the laundry and toilet.

There's a driveway on the western side of the house that leads to the back of the property.

Why This Cottage is Special: Heritage Listing

The Cottage at 68 Stephen Street was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 20 February 1995. This means it's considered very important because it meets certain rules.

Showing History

This cottage is one of the oldest homes in Toowoomba. It helps us understand how Toowoomba changed from a farming area to an important town starting in the 1850s.

Rare and Unique

The stone building is special because it's an unusual example of a Toowoomba house built with laterite. Using laterite as a building material in Queensland is also quite rare.

Beautiful and Important Design

The cottage is in one of Toowoomba's first neighborhoods. It's important because it shows unusual ways of designing and building houses in the 1860s. It also adds to the beauty and character of Stephen Street.