Jimbour Dry Stone Wall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Jimbour Dry Stone Wall |
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Jimbour Dry Stone Wall, 2011
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| Location | Dalby-Jandowae Road, Jimbour East, Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Design period | 1840s - 1860s (mid-19th century) |
| Built | circa 1870s |
| Official name: Jimbour Dry Stone Wall | |
| Type | state heritage (landscape, built) |
| Designated | 31 May 2005 |
| Reference no. | 602415 |
| Significant period | 1870s (historical) |
| Significant components | wall/s |
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The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is a very old stone wall located in Jimbour East, Queensland, Australia. It was built around the 1870s. This amazing wall shows how skilled early settlers were. It also shows how they managed their land and animals. The wall is so important that it was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 2005.
Contents
A Look Back: The Wall's Story
Why Was the Wall Built?
The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall stands on a low, rocky hill north of Jimbour Homestead. This homestead was once the main part of a huge sheep and cattle farm called Jimbour. The wall was probably built in the 1870s. Its main purpose was to act like a fence. It stopped sheep from wandering off the rocky hill. It also helped keep dingoes away from the sheep. Plus, it protected crops from wallabies that ate plants near the homestead.
What is Dry Stone Walling?
Dry stone walling is a very old building method. It uses stones to build a wall without any mortar (like cement). This skill became popular in Britain in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It came to Australia in the mid-1800s.
Building a dry stone wall meant laying two rows of stones. These rows would lean inwards towards the top. The space in between was filled with smaller stones and rubble. Finally, flat coping stones were placed on top.
These walls took a lot of hard work to build and fix. But where stones were easy to find, they were a good choice. They were often cheaper and lasted longer than wooden fences. They also didn't burn, which was a big plus. For European settlers, these walls made the land look more like their homes in Europe.
Building the "Great Wall of Jimbour"
In the 1860s, the Bell & Sons family owned the Jimbour farm. They bought more land around Jimbour Homestead. An old map from 1864 shows wooden fences, but no stone wall on the Jimbour Ridge.
However, the Bells made many improvements to their land in the 1870s. The grand Jimbour House was built between 1874 and 1877. The dry stone wall was likely built around the same time. This was when the Jimbour farm was at its busiest and most successful.
After Jimbour House was fixed up in 1925, a newspaper called The Queenslander wrote about the wall. The article used notes from Harry Ensor. He was Joshua Peter Bell's overseer in the 1870s. Ensor said they first planned a log fence. But there were so many stones, they decided to build a dry stone wall instead.
This wall stretched for about 4 miles (6.4 km) (about 6.4 kilometers). It was about 5 feet (1.5 m) (1.5 meters) high. It was 2 feet 6 inches (0.76 m) (76 cm) wide at the bottom and 18 inches (460 mm) (46 cm) wide at the top. People called it the "Great Wall of Jimbour." Building it was a huge challenge. The rocky ground meant the bullocks (like oxen) needed new shoes all the time. The workers even had to tie tough leather to their boots. This difficult work made the wall a long and tiring project. Ensor remembered that the work leader, who came up with the idea, was called "Stonewall Jackson."
The Wall's Purpose
Harry Ensor also said the wall was built to divide the Jimbour farm. But it's not clear exactly what he meant. A map from 1877 shows the dry stone wall along the Jimbour Ridge. The surveyor noted the wall was "in a bad state being full of grass." However, the wall was not used as a boundary for any of the land sections surveyed.
It seems more likely the wall was a barrier fence. In the 1870s, Jimbour was a large sheep farm. Shepherds still looked after the sheep. The rocky ground of the ridge was hard to walk on. Harry Ensor said the "grass was on many occasions higher than the sheep." This made it hard to herd them. The stone wall was built tall enough to keep sheep inside. It probably helped stop flocks from wandering over the grassy ridge. This was important because Jimbour had a problem with dingoes at the time.
The wall might also have helped keep wallabies away. Wallabies were a big problem for farmers on the Darling Downs in the late 1800s. They ate a lot of grass and crops. Farmers had to build fences to control them. A newspaper report from 1874 mentioned "thousands of wallabies" near Jandowae. It said fences were built "for the sole purpose of shutting in these little grass devourers." At Jimbour, wallabies were also a nuisance. In 1882, a report said parts of Jimbour were "almost useless by reason of being overrun with wallaby."
The Wall Today
In the early 1900s, Jimbour land was divided into smaller farms. The dry stone wall was used as a rough dividing line for these new farms. Even though some parts of the wall have fallen down, where wallabies have made paths over it, other parts are still in good condition. The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is a great example of the skills and hard work of early farm workers in Queensland.
What the Wall Looks Like
The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is on the Jimbour Ridge. This is a low, grassy, but rocky hill north of Jimbour House. The wall is built from volcanic rocks found on this ridge.
It's built as a "random double wall." This means it has two outer layers (or skins) of stones. These stones are not perfectly shaped or laid in neat rows. They taper inwards, getting narrower towards the top. The space between these two outer layers is filled with smaller stones and rubble.
The wall is about 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) (about 4 miles) long. Some parts are still in their original state. They stand about 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) (5 feet) high. Other parts have fallen down to the foundation stones. These sections are about 50 and 70 centimetres (20 and 28 in) (20 to 28 inches) high.
In the fallen sections, wooden sapling posts or steel posts have been added. These posts hold up wire mesh and barbed wire. It looks like workers removed the outer stones on one side of the wall. Then they put the posts in place and put the stones back to hold them.
Why It's a Heritage Site
The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on May 31, 2005. It met several important rules to be listed:
It shows how Queensland's history developed. The dry stone wall was likely built in the 1870s. At that time, Jimbour Station was one of Queensland's biggest farms. The wall shows how early settlers used traditional European building skills. They used these skills to control, shape, and adapt to the Queensland landscape.
It is a rare or uncommon part of Queensland's culture. Dry stone walls of this size are very rare in Queensland. The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is a good example of something uncommon in Queensland's history and culture.
It shows the main features of its type of cultural place. The wall shows the hard work and skills of early farm workers. It is a great example of a traditional way of building walls, called dry stone walling. This method was brought to Queensland in the 1800s.
