Gracemere Homestead
Gracemere Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead at 234 Gracemere Road, Gracemere, Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1858 to 1890s. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
Gracemere Homestead comprises a number of single storey, timber and corrugated iron structures, including a large house, characteristic of a Central Queensland pastoral property established during the 1850s. These structures are complemented by an extensive sub-tropical garden and other significant landscape elements. The Archer family and their family company have owned Gracemere Homestead for almost 150 years. The first wing of the house was designed by Colin Archer and built in 1858. An additional wing was constructed sometime between 1862 and 1874. Charles and William Archer were the first Europeans to enter the area where the homestead and the city of Rockhampton now stand.The Archers were of Scottish extraction but in 1825 the family moved to Larvik in southern Norway. Each of the nine sons eventually came to Australia, remaining for varying periods of time before returning to Europe. The first son significant to the story of Gracemere Homestead was David Archer, who arrived in 1834 to work on an uncle's property in New South Wales. Two of his brothers, Thomas and William, followed in 1837. The young men formed a partnership to establish Durundur, a sheep station on the Stanley River north of Brisbane in 1840–41. They were amongst the earliest pastoralists in the Moreton Bay region. Seeking further pastoral land they explored north along the river systems, selecting Emu Creek, Cooyar, Coonambula and Eidsvold on the Upper Burnett in 1848. Sometime between 1843 and 1852 the eldest Archer son, Charles, arrived from Norway. In 1852 David returned to Norway and was replaced by Colin, the eighth brother.
Eager to find land more suited to sheep and wool production, as were many southern pastoralists, Charles and William explored the central coast hinterland in 1853 in the wake of Ludwig Leichhardt's exploration of the area between 1844 and 1846.
On 4 May 1853 the Archer party reached the top of the northern escarpment of the Dee Range and observed the confluence of the Dawson and Mackenzie Rivers flowing into Keppel Bay. Three days later they descended into the valley and discovered what Charles described as a "magnificent sheet of water". It was named Farris after a lake near their hometown of Larvik in Norway. Charles identified his ideal site for a house on a peninsula midway along its eastern shore. The brothers then explored further east along the Fitzroy River to Keppel Bay in July and August 1853.
While on these trips, Charles made semi-professional maps, which were used to construct the first official map ever published of the central coast hinterland in January 1854, when the New South Wales government proclaimed the Port Curtis and Leichhardt pastoral districts open for settlement. In 1854 the Archer brothers took up a total of twelve runs in the Port Curtis district, including Charles Archer's Farris run. Being in what was classified as a "settled" district, Port Curtis runs were subject to possible resumption, which prompted the Archers to seek land further inland in the "unsettled" districts. In 1854, they were the first Europeans to reach Peak Downs after Leichhardt's aborted effort in 1847.
In August 1855 Charles stocked Farris run with sheep, and set about establishing it as the Archers' head station in the Port Curtis district. Around this time the brothers decided that Farris lake and run would be renamed Gracemere after Thomas Archer's wife Grace. Thomas, another of the Archer brothers, had made his way to Australia in 1853 and he and his wife had resided at Eidsvold Station in the Burnett until returning to Europe in 1855.
Upon arrival at Gracemere, Charles Archer began the task of equipping the station with the necessary buildings and structures such as stockyards, a shearing shed and huts for the workers. In 1856 Colin moved from Coonambula to Gracemere, and the firms David Archer & Co and Charles and Thomas Archer were amalgamated, becoming Archer & Co. A shingle-roofed structure, known as Bachelor's Hall, was built to house the brothers. Also, a visitor to the station, George Elliot, died of natural causes and was buried in what was to become the garden. He and his brother, "Hobby" Elliot, a notable pastoralist in the district, were friends of the Archers. Charles returned to Norway at the end of 1856.
In 1858 Colin Archer designed and constructed the surviving slab house at Gracemere homestead. All the timber for wall framing and roof cladding was felled on the property. According to Colin's journal the house took from May to July to complete. It was sited to the immediate east of Bachelor's Hall, on the sloping peninsula identified by Charles in 1853. In plan the house was a simple rectangle, the long sides of which faced east and west. It contained two large rooms, one designated as a sitting room with fireplace. The walls of this structure were clad in vertical ironbark slabs and the roof with timber shingles. Experienced with the regional sub-tropical climate, Colin ensured that the rooms of his house were shaded on two sides by verandahs. The west-facing verandah was shaded further by a timber pergola, which quickly became overgrown with bougainvillea.
The composition of the outer walls of the house reveals the degree to which the designer strived to incorporate passive cooling mechanisms and his ability to creatively utilise available materials. The walls were four metres in height. Colin employed a continuous wall plate or tie beam at the heads of all windows and doors to create top and bottom wall plates. In the upper section were placed a series of ventilation openings. The availability of lengths of trees suitable for splitting slabs influenced this decision. Sections of the outer iron bark slab walls were arranged to ensure that joining studs in the wall would meet tie beams in the ceiling. This junction is noticeable along the top plate. Also, the verandah windows featured shelf-like sills that positioned earthenware flasks of cool water "known as water monkeys" to catch the slightest breeze.
A further wing was added prior to the 1874 arrival of Thomas and Grace Archer and their large family, and after 1861 when Sandy Archer lived for a year at Gracemere and sketched the original house. The new wing created an L-shaped plan that extended toward the east. It contained two large rooms, for dining and sleeping, and one small room. The design of this addition harmonized with that of the existing wing: it was one room deep, had four-metre high outer walls, a matching roof pitch, and verandahs placed on all sides. The walls were clad in pit-sawn Burdekin Plum. It is not clear whether Colin Archer was involved with the design of this extension, as he returned to Norway in 1861, but a number of his key design features were carried through.
Other buildings constructed around 1858 include: servant's quarters, office and bookkeeper's quarters, carpenter and blacksmith's shop, stables and cattle yards. Opposite these, on the southern side of the entrance roadway, were sited a number of worker's cottages and a woolshed. This collection of buildings supported a bustling community. A Banyan Tree was planted to mark the entrance to the settlement.
It is unclear precisely when the Bachelor's Hall was removed and a screened room inserted on the north-western corner of the house. The Hall is visible in a 1908 photograph, but another taken in 1930 reveals that it had been removed by then. Also, the narrow verandah originally built onto the east-facing end of the later wing had been enclosed by 1907. A guest cottage built equidistant between the servants' quarters and kitchen must have been constructed at some time following the demolition of Bachelor's Hall in the early 20th century.
When first exploring the area it was Charles who imagined a house on the Gracemere peninsula and conceived of its general relationship to the lagoon being mediated by a garden, however, it was William Archer who laid out the homestead's extensive garden after 1858. Its design partially emulates that of the family home, Tolderodden, which was originally used as the Larvik Customs House. It was surrounded on three sides by the sea and the brothers' father landscaped its gardens down to the water's edge. Gracemere's garden design comprised two sections: formal surrounds to the house made of raised planting beds retained behind stone walls and containing small scale shrubbery; and beyond this, larger trees scattered informally down to the lagoon shore. A series of gravelled or stone-edged pathways led visitors to various destination points around the lagoon. The stone walls surrounding the front circular lawn and raised garden beds were constructed by miners made destitute by the failure of the 1858 Canoona gold rush. During the 1860s plant stock was brought from the Sydney Botanical Gardens to establish the Gracemere garden, to which many Central Queensland trees and shrubs can trace their origins.
The Norwegian naturalist and explorer Carl Lumholtz lived for almost a year at Gracemere homestead and described the garden twenty years after it was established. He catalogued the varieties of shrubs and trees growing there, including orange trees, pineapple and mango, the Madagascar Delonix, the Brazilian Jacaranda, several sorts of Australian conifer, and a beautiful specimen of the bunya-bunya. Lumholtz also took note of the large iron water tanks positioned at each corner of the house.
In October 1858 Rockhampton was proclaimed a town. Gracemere lost one square mile of riverside land to the new municipality and its town side boundary was relocated only a couple of kilometres from the homestead. In 1856 the Crown Lands Commissioner for Leichhardt had consulted Charles Archer regarding a suitable site for the township. The place on the Fitzroy River where vessels were unloading goods for Gracemere was selected, at a point where a sandy bay crossed the river. There was a suggestion that the new town be named Charleston in honour of its founder, but he modestly declined this honour and Rockhampton, meaning "town near the rocks in the river" was chosen.
Colin Archer began his return journey to Norway in September 1861. Just before he arrived Charles died, requiring Colin to stay permanently in Norway to assist his mother. He eventually married a Norwegian woman and started his own business as a naval architect and boat builder, becoming famous for building many kinds of seaworthy vessels. Most renowned was the polar ship, the Fram, which brought the Norwegian explorers Nansen and Amundsen on their voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic. A photograph of the Fram was hanging in Gracemere's dining room in 1913. Colin also achieved fame for his designs for pilot boats and rescue cutters or lifeboats, his work revolutionising boating safety.
During 1861 and 1862 the Archers were able to pre-emptively purchase the land on which the homestead was sited. Archer & Co. sought to have its twelve runs in the Port Curtis District, including what was still known officially as Farris, consolidated under the name Gracemere, which had been used by the family since 1855. They were initially successful. However, Crown Law Officers provided a late opinion that the consolidation was illegal and the Government proclamation advertising it was cancelled. The issue was not resolved until 1875 when William Archer petitioned the Queensland parliament to obtain pre-emptive rights over certain leased portions of Gracemere on which approximately worth of improvements had been made, resulting in the "Gracemere Pre-emptive Bill" being passed. Leases on the relevant runs were granted from 1862 and the company continued to pay rent until, after they voluntarily surrendered what remained of it, the leased portions of the run were resumed in 1876.
It was during this period that a further Archer son and brother made Queensland his home. Archibald Archer settled at Gracemere in 1860 after trying various entrepreneurial activities in Polynesia. In 1865 he and William became committee members of the Queensland Land League. In June 1867 Archie was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in the new seat of Rockhampton. In parliament he promoted land legislation reform and played a pivotal role in the drafting of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868. After returning from Europe in 1870, Archie was elected to the seat of Blackall adjoining Rockhampton, holding it until 1886. In 1888 he was elected again as Member for Rockhampton and retained this seat until 1896 when he resigned in order to return to the family home in Norway. He was also heavily involved in the separation movement, which sought to have northern and central Queensland made a separate colony. During all his years in the Queensland parliament he resided principally at Gracemere homestead.
In 1866 and 1867 Queensland experienced a severe economic recession. Gracemere's prospects as a pastoral station were never to match its earlier successes. At the end of this decade the Archers made a change from sheep to cattle on Gracemere. It was determined that sheep did not grow high-grade wool in coastal country, but more significantly local meat processing facilities had developed. The family company had established one of Queensland's first Hereford studs in 1862.
While members of the second generation of Archers had started to arrive in Australia and take jobs on the Archer company's properties as early as the mid-1850s, it was not until David Archer's son, Robert Stubbs Archer, commenced management of Gracemere that a real handover of control started. During the 1870s, James, the youngest of the original Archer brothers, had managed Gracemere before taking on the management of Minnie Downs in 1880. When he returned to Europe in 1883, Robert Stubbs Archer was considered competent to manage Gracemere alone. He married Alice Manon Marwedel in 1889 and they began a family at the homestead.
Daisy Archer, and later her daughter Joan born in 1890, were largely responsible for the woodcarvings that decorate the interior of the main house at Gracemere Homestead. Daisy's interest in woodcarving had been inspired chiefly by the station bookkeeper, Henry James King-Church. He also fostered Joan's initial interest in the craft. Unlike her mother, whose work was completed for private enjoyment, Joan exhibited her work and received prizes in Rockhampton and Toowoomba. The key pieces of carving in the house decorated the sitting room. Prior to the 1890s, Daisy was responsible for carving the fireplace surrounds, the fire screen, the carved panels of the bookshelves, a spinning chair and behind this, a carved pelmet. Her husband Robert suggested that the chimneypiece be panelled and embellished, and this work was probably carried out before 1905. King-Church was responsible for the roundel at the top of the chimney, which carried the date AD 1858 and was surrounded by the motto 'East West hame's best'. Underneath it he also completed an opposing pair of griffins. Below this was Joan's first carving, matched bird panels. Daisy's carving for the bookshelves shows the inspiration she drew from Nordic folk carvings. While her cousin and fiancé Alister Archer served overseas during the First World War, Joan completed a replica of a Norwegian chair from c1200 AD that was held in the Oslo Museum. She also completed a dining room dresser. Joan continued the Nordic associations but tackled illustrative themes from folk tales and legends and included figures rather than only flowers, scrolls and other Neo-Renaissance motifs.
Throughout the term of his station management, Robert Stubbs Archer maintained Gracemere as a viable business despite facing a severe drought in 1885, floods in 1890, the arrival of the cattle tick in Queensland in 1896, and the great drought of 1898–1903, during which the Archer cattle herd was reduced from 12,000 to 2,000. In 1899 the business partnership was rearranged, with David, William and Thomas carrying on the firm as Archer Brothers. In 1907 the firm became a limited liability company, with Robert as Chairman of Directors and having full power to carry on its business. Seven years later, in a scheme devised by Robert, the almost debt free leases to Torsdale, a property held in partnership between himself and his brother, were amalgamated with the holdings of Archer Brothers Ltd. This exercise involved much personal sacrifice by Robert and his brother, James, to save the family firm. Robert Stubbs Archer died in 1926. Apart from having managed Gracemere for over 40 years, he served as President of the Rockhampton Agricultural Society for thirty years, Chairman of the Rockhampton Harbour Board, and as the local Director of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company.
Robert's son-in-law and nephew, Alister Archer, took over management of Gracemere following Robert's death. In 1947, at a Board meeting of Archer Brothers Ltd, it was agreed that all properties would be sold. Originally Gracemere was to be sold with Torsdale, including the homestead lot, however when no offers were received the properties were offered separately. After Torsdale was finally sold in 1949, the directors agreed that the Gracemere head station block be sold to Joan and Alister Archer. Their son Cedric and his wife and child returned to assist the couple maintain the property. Daisy Archer also returned and worked on the garden.
The homestead block remains in the Archer family. On a nearby rise, accessed via a nearly one kilometre long entrance avenue, is the station cemetery. Once on the homestead allotment, the Crown resumed the land in 1965. The first Archer to be buried there was Robert Stubbs, all previous family members returning to Europe before their deaths. Daisy Archer was buried there in 1952 and Alister Archer in 1965. Other people involved with the station were also interred there, such as Henry King-Church and Edward Kelly, the station's overseer during the mid to late 19th century.