Strathmore Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead at Strathmore Station on Strathmore Road, Springlands, Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from the 1860s onward. It is also known as Strathmore Station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 November 2008.
History Strathmore Homestead is located on the north side of Strathmore Road at Springlands, about by road north-west of Collinsville.
First established in the early 1860s Strathmore Homestead has evolved to comprise a large number of buildings, structures and yards constructed from possibly the earliest establishment of the site through the nineteenth century to the latter part of the twentieth century. Structures include a slab hut (currently used to accommodate the kitchen and dining room for station personnel), main homestead, laundry, office, stables, meathouses, swimming pool complex, various cottages, homestead gardens, former school, former zoo, sheds, weir and a private cemetery.
Strathmore was leased in 1862 by PF Selheim who was connected in partnership with CW Touissant until September 1865 when new lease claimants were William Tucker and William Duncan Stewart. Tucker was still at Strathmore in 1870. In 1872 Leopold De Salis leased Strathbogie which was to form part of what was consolidated into Strathmore in 1885. De Salis had leased Strathmore by 1875 in partnership with A Macdonald. This began a business partnership that was to continue until 1890 when the Union Bank of Australia acquired the lease. De Salis was a pastoralist and politician and began acquiring properties in New South Wales in the mid-1840s.
In 1885 De Salis petitioned to consolidate a number of runs into Strathmore. However the consolidation did not occur until 1890 when De Salis, with his brother Henry, re-applied for a consolidation. In July 1890 the Strathmore runs included Strathmore, East Downs, Binjee, Mullar, Dirrill, Tullick, Glenking, West Downs, Mount Wickham, Harvest Home, Boundary, Strathbogie and Wengeur. These were divided between the settled and unsettled districts within the North Kennedy Pastoral District.
By October of the same year the De Salis brothers and Henry Fane De Salis transferred the Strathmore brand to the Union Bank of Australia. With debts of over £100 000, Leopold De Salis returned to New South Wales and was declared insolvent in 1898. The Union Bank held the lease to Strathmore for a number of years with managers on the property.
The year 1902 saw the beginning of a partnership between William Oswald Gilchrist, William Holden Watt with Arthur Henry Wickham Cunningham. This partnership was the beginning of an association of the Cunningham family with Strathmore that exists to the present day. William Oswald Gilchrist was the eldest son of John Gilchrist, a Scottish merchant, and his wife Isabella née Wilson. William Holden Watt was the son of Ernest Alexander Watt and his wife, Mary Jane née Holden.
Gilchrist followed his father, John Gilchrist, in the family firm of Gilchrist Watt and Sanderson Ltd. The firm tended not to invest directly in land but rather in advancing money to graziers, who in turn, bought their stores and had wool shipped through the firm. William Watt's father, Ernest, was a director of Gilchrist Watt and Sanderson Ltd. Ernest Watt did have an interest in the acquisition of pastoral properties and, besides Strathmore, his other cattle stations in Queensland included Glenprairie, outside of Rockhampton.
The Cunningham family is one of the oldest pastoral families in North Queensland. In April 1861 Edward Cunningham, father of AHW Cunningham, left Port Denison with four other men to explore the country west of Bowen in search of good pastoral runs. Cunningham took up Burdekin Downs, an area of . He did not reside on the property, living at Woodhouse Station, outside Ayr, until his death in 1898. AHW Cunningham was born in June 1879 and spent most of his life in North Queensland. At the age of 19, following his father's death, he took over the management of Woodhouse for Gilchrist Watt and Cunningham.
In 1902, following a devastating season for Woodhouse when 85 percent of the herd was lost, AHW Cunningham set about acquiring new land for re-stocking purposes. On his recommendation Gilchrist Watt and Cunningham purchased the lease for Strathmore Station at a cost of £50,000. Cunningham took up residence on Strathmore where the family has remained since.
A list of improvements dated 1906 values the main house at £1,000. One secondary source states that the homestead was constructed in 1903. This date is possible as the architectural style, including its ornamentation along the roof ridge, timber louvred gablets decorated with diagonal battens and the gabled pediment detailing on the south elevation marking the front entrance, indicate a late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century construction date. The year 1903 is also the year after the start of the Gilchrist, Watt and Cunningham partnership and the construction of a suitable residence may have been a priority for AHW Cunningham. Cunningham married Nellie Maud Wharton in May 1910 and the marriage produced four children: a daughter and three sons, one of whom was Edward Snr, born in 1914 and father of the present lessee, Edward Thomas Cunningham.
The 1906 list of improvements indicates that two kitchens existed on the property and the slab hut, for which a definite construction date has not been determined, may have been one of the kitchens. It is now used as staff sleeping quarters and storage with a later addition containing a dining room and kitchen. It is of slab construction and has a steeply pitched gabled roof over an original one-room-wide core, suggesting it may date from the mid-nineteenth century. Oral histories date the building as .
Other structures listed by July 1906 were shed and saddle room, stable and yards, men's hut, cottage, store and office, beef house, kitchen, kitchen no.2, blacksmith's shop, stockyards, of fencing, four wells and troughs. Stockyards and horse yards were also listed at Mount Wickham, one of the Strathmore paddocks at the time. The blacksmith shop may have been demolished as there is no building on the property which, through its form or fabric, suggests a blacksmithing use. Further construction on the site since 1906 includes two more meat houses, another cottage and a swimming pool. The 1906 list provides a good indication of how the head station on a large pastoral property functioned at this period.
On behalf of the partnership, AHW Cunningham controlled three properties: Strathmore (with its outstations of Strathbogie, Strathalbyn, Hidden Valley and Castleview), Woodhouse and Glenprairie. The combined area of these properties was with over 50,000 head of cattle.
AHW Cunningham was a member of the Queensland Turf Club, the Civic Club at Charters Towers, and the North Queensland and Tattersalls Club, Townsville. In the early years he established a thoroughbred stud and the Strathmore colours of green and orange were a regular sight at North Queensland race meetings. Cunningham was a foundation member of the North Queensland Amateur Turf Club in 1910. He succeeded the late JHS Barnes as president in 1912 and held the position until his death. He was also a committee member of the North Queensland Racing Association for many years.
Cunningham was keenly interested and involved in public and pastoral matters in the Bowen district. He was a member of the Wangaratta Shire Council for 39 years from August 1903, serving as councillor until he was elected chairman in February 1916, a position he held until his death on 8 January 1942. At the outbreak of World War I he had volunteered his services and, like a number of other pastoralists, was rejected on the grounds that he was working in an essential occupation.
Cunningham's son, Edward, started work on Strathmore following his schooling in Sydney. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he and his two brothers John and Henry enlisted in Townsville. Edward was recalled to assist with the management of Strathmore a short time later when his father fell ill and was discharged from the services as he worked in an essential occupation. Like his father, Edward Cunningham devoted a portion of his time to public affairs. He was chairman of the Bowen Shire Council from 1960 to 1966 and was on the board of directors for the Collinsville Coal Company. He was a member of the Queensland Cattleman's Association, founder of the Poll Devon Breed of cattle in Australia, founder of the Queensland Branch of the Devon Breeders Society in 1968 and its president until his retirement in 1985.
On 1 July 1959 a 53-year lease commenced on Strathmore that expires on 30 June 2012. This lease was transferred to Edward Cunningham, his brother Henry Keith Cunningham and his sister, Nellie Macmillan, wife of Murdoch Campbell Macmillan, on 15 July 1965. On 21 December 1993 Edward Cunningham was killed tragically. The lease was transferred to his son Edward Thomas Cunningham on 10 April 1996 and the Cunningham family connection with Strathmore continues.
Three members of the Cunningham family are buried near the main complex in a private cemetery: Edward Cunningham (2 December 1914 – 21 December 1993) Margaret Cunningham (10 March 1945 – 21 April 1945, daughter of Edward Cunningham) Wyatt Cunningham (19 November 1995 – 20 February 1999, son of Edward Thomas Cunningham).
Description Strathmore Homestead is located on a land lease on Strathmore Road at Springlands, about by road north-west of Collinsville. The complex, situated to the north of Strathmore Road, comprises a homestead, laundry, slab hut (used to accommodate the kitchen and dining room for station personnel), office, stables, meat houses, swimming pool complex, various cottages, homestead gardens, sheds, former school, former zoo, weir and private cemetery.
Main residence The main Strathmore residence is situated on a rocky rise adjacent to and south of Crush Creek. It is a large house of single-skin exposed timber-framed construction with wide verandahs on three sides and is elevated above its sloping site on a combination of timber stumps and steel posts. Attached on its western elevation is a hip-roofed, single-skin timber cottage, which houses the kitchen and utility rooms.
The large hipped corrugated galvanised iron roof is a feature of the homestead. It has ogee guttering and acroteria and is encircled by a veranda roof with quad guttering and acroteria. The ridge is defined by finials and diagonally battened, louvred gablets. At the southern end of the house, transverse roof vents with louvred projecting gables are decorated with finials and cresting. The gable on the southern elevation over the entrance contains a louvred vent.
The main entrance to the homestead is off the avenue lined with phoenix palms (Phoenix canariensis) and is accessed via a set of concrete stairs with decorative pillars to the timber stairway with handrail, and a trellis with trailing vines straddling the stairs. Additional entrances are located on the east and west sides.
A verandah encircles three sides of the building and is enclosed with matchstick timber blinds, some of which are fixed to the verandah framework externally with vertical battens. Ripple iron awnings provide weather protection to the eastern side of the building and rear northern verandah which is very wide and has parquetry flooring. French doors with fanlights lead from the veranda into the rooms of the homestead. The west section has been utilised for bathroom facilities and entry to the kitchen and utility section.