Bankfoot House is a heritage-listed homestead located at 1998 Old Gympie Road, Glass House Mountains, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. Built in 1878, the property was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 11 December 2008, in recognition of its historical and cultural value.
History
The core of Bankfoot House, a timber homestead on the Old Gympie Road to the southwest of the township of Glass House Mountains, was built in 1878 by the first European settlers in the area, the Grigor family. The house, probably the oldest surviving building in the Glass House Mountains district, was part of a coach stop first established in 1868 on the first Brisbane-to-Gympie Road, and it was occupied by the Grigors and their descendants until 2002. It is the only surviving coach change station element on the Cobb and Co. Brisbane to Gympie route, and it is aptly located opposite the Australian Teamsters Hall of Fame and Spirit of Cobb and Co. complex.
The Glass House Mountains were named by Captain Cook in 1770, but it was to be another century before Europeans actually settled near the iconic volcanic plugs. The area between the Mooloolah and Maroochy Rivers was closed to settlement prior to 1860 as part of a Reserve proclaimed by New South Wales Governor George Gipps in 1842. The aim of the reserve was to protect the bunya trees that were highly valued as a food source by the Aboriginal people. After the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859, Gipp's proclamation was rescinded by the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which allowed for post-survey selection, and timber-getting licenses. It was this early activity in today's Maroochy Shire, along with the discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867, which led to the first white settlement at the Glasshouse Mountains further south.
William Grigor and Mary Fenwick both arrived at Moreton Bay on 19 January 1855, on the sailing ship . Mary had been born in Bankfoot, Perthshire, Scotland, in 1834, and had met William, also from Scotland, during her voyage to Australia. She worked as a governess to the children of Captain John Clements Wickham, the Government Resident for the Moreton Bay settlement, at Newstead House, and later as governess to the McConnel children on Durundur station (near Woodford), prior to marrying William in August 1863 at Eagle Farm.
William worked in various timber-related industries after his arrival in Moreton Bay, and became friends with another Scotsman, James Low, at Moggill. It has also been claimed that he worked at Eagle Farm, the Pine River, and Burpengary during these early years. In 1862 or 1863 Grigor and Low formed a partnership with William Pettigrew, who had opened a sawmill on William Street in Brisbane in 1853. Low and Grigor may have been timber getting in the Mooloolah River area as early as 1862. In the first half of 1863 the three partners converted the sailing ship Granite City into a stern paddle steamer named Gneering, which was to transport cut cedar from Pettigrew's depot near the Mooloolah River to his sawmill in Brisbane. Grigor would organise the timber getting, Low would supervise its transport, and Pettigrew would handle the sawmilling. The partnership had dissolved by 1868, and the Gneering was eventually wrecked in 1893.
Grigor and Low moved to the mouth of the Mooloolah River some time in 1863, to operate a store and timber depot. Various histories refer to either 'Low and Grigor's depot' or 'Pettigrew's depot' near the mouth of the Mooloolah River, but they may have been the same place. In 1865 Low and Grigor were timber getting on the Mooloolah River and lower Maroochy River, and Low also operated on the upper Maroochy. Mrs Low was the first white woman in the Maroochy district, arriving at the Mooloolah River several months after her son John was born in Spring Hill in December 1863. The Grigor's first four children were born at Mooloolah between October 1864 and January 1869. Grigor and Low also obtained adjoining allotments in Gloucester Street in Spring Hill in 1867, and built a pair of semi detached stone houses. William Grigor's House (now heritage-listed) stayed in the family until recently, and was rented out for most of their period of ownership.
Grigor and Low had established another timber depot, along with a store and post office (the first post office between Brisbane and Gympie), on the north bank of the Maroochy River opposite Dunethin Rock by 1867. In October 1867 James Nash discovered gold at Gympie, and Low and Grigor promptly cut a track north to Gympie from their Maroochy River depot, providing an alternative route to travelling by steamer from Brisbane to Maryborough, and then travelling overland south to Gympie. Instead, travellers could ship up the Maroochy River to Dunethin Rock before travelling north overland to Gympie. The other main land route to Gympie from Brisbane at this time was a track via Durundur Station, over the mountains to Conondale, then along the Mary River to Gympie.
Although the two men operated the Dunethin Rock depot, the men's families probably continued to reside near the Mooloolah River, as there are references to Grigor and Low moving from Mooloolah in 1868, to take up their selections at Glass House Mountains and Yandina respectively. However, another source claims that Grigor resided at Mount Buderim for a time before he moved to the Glass House Mountains. The men's decision to relocate during 1868 was prompted by the Queensland government's attempts to form a proper road from Brisbane and Gympie, and the two timber getters' realisation that there was a living to be made out of accommodating travellers on this road.
Tom Petrie was contracted by the government to blaze a more direct route from Brisbane after the gold discovery. As Cobb and Co. had announced its intent to run a service when a proper road was completed, Petrie was accompanied by the Cobb and Co. driver Hiram Barnes. The resulting track was sufficient for people walking or riding to Gympie, but in May 1868 the government allocated for the construction of a road trafficable by carts and wagons. Work on the road, which followed Petrie's track, progressed slowly due to inclement weather and the defection of employees to the goldfields. A letter from Pettigrew in The Queenslander, 1 August 1868, noted that the section of the road from Gympie from Yandina was complete, and stated that from there to the head of navigation (on the Maroochy River) was . If the road was as first rate as reported, the letter continued, Low and Grigor would shift to the head of navigation without delay. Early in October 1868, Cobb & Co.'s representative, Mr Hoyt, accompanied by a government road engineer, Frederick Byerly, took 28 hours travelling time to traverse the new road from Gympie to Brisbane in a two-horse buggy.
The Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1868 allowed for selection of Agricultural, First Class Pastoral, and Second Class Pastoral land (at decreasing prices and increasing acreages respectively), and cheap Homestead leases of . Low secured a selection near today's Yandina, on the south bank of the Maroochy River at the point where it was forded by the new Gympie road, and moved his depot and post office upstream from Dunethin Rock to this new location. He soon built a hotel, called "Maroochie House". Low later died at Bankfoot House in 1883, after falling sick while travelling.
Grigor in turned selected the Homestead Lease where Bankfoot House was built. He selected Portion 1, Parish of Beerwah, on 16 October 1868, for including the survey fee, and a Deed of Grant was later passed in January 1875. The western boundary of this portion was described in the application to lease as being the east side of "the main road leading from Brisbane to Gympie". Grigor also took out leases on nearby Portions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 between 1874 and 1878, with the leases on Portions 2 and 3 being transferred from Edmund Lander in May 1878. Portion 6 was purchased by James H. Pleace in 1884, and was briefly owned by John Grigor from September 1912 to November 1913 before subdivision began in 1914.
The original Bankfoot House, named after the home village of Mary Grigor, was most likely built between 16 October and 12 November 1868, by a ship's carpenter named Mewitt. There has been some speculation that it was built prior to October 1868, possibly even in late 1867, although it would have been bold of Grigor to start building before he had selected the land, or before he was sure that the new Government road would be passing by his doorstep.
The original building sat on the eastern side of the road, and was designed to provide accommodation for travellers. A dressed log foundation was laid on the ground, and local hardwood was pit-sawn for its framing and weatherboards (the site of the sawpit is across the road from the existing Bankfoot House). It was a narrow building about long, with bedrooms and a hall on the northern end, and a dining room at the southern end. The red cedar table, seating 16 guests, that was used in this dining room is still stored in the current Bankfoot House. Beech was used for the internal walls and cedar for the doors and windows was obtained from present day Peachester. The shingled roof was gabled with incorporated verandahs, the rear verandah being enclosed. Bankfoot House also acted as a post office and as a lunch stop and horse change station for Cobb and Co. coaches. The timber post office box is still extant and is stored at Bankfoot House. Other buildings at the change station eventually included a butcher's shop; the 1878 family homestead, a dairy/laundry; stables; feed shed; and Cobb and Co.'s Stables.
The site selected by Grigor, on a flat topped rise just north of Coonowrin Creek, was roughly halfway between the Caboolture River and Edmund Lander's homestead on the Mooloolah River (today's town of Mooloolah), both of which also became Cobb and Co. coaching stages. The landmark quality of the nearby Glass House Mountains, the fresh water available from Coonowrin Creek, and the elevated site of the accommodation house were all probably considerations in the siting of Bankfoot, especially the availability of water for horses. The top of the rise was level enough for horse-drawn vehicles to pull up in front of the building, and it had a long enough road frontage to accommodate stables and a feed shed next to the house. There was also a layer of stone about under the soil surface, which might have been useful in preventing wheels bogging below a certain point when the ground was sodden after rain.
When Cobb and Co. commenced its first coach run on 12 November 1868, Bankfoot provided the lunch stop. The coach, driven by Hiram Barnes, had left Brisbane early that morning, and a second coach, driven by Robert Martin, had left Gympie for Brisbane at the same time. The two coaches met at the Maroochy River (Low's depot) on Thursday night, and both successfully completed their journeys on Friday evening, 13 November. Hiram Barnes received a hero's welcome at Gympie. The fare for the journey was , and it had taken two days to complete the distance of about .