Birdsville Hotel
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Birdsville Hotel is a heritage-listed
hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...
at Burt Street,
Birdsville Birdsville is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Birdsville had a population of 110 people. It is a popular tourist destination with many people using it as a starting point acro ...
,
Shire of Diamantina The Shire of Diamantina is a local government area in Central West Queensland, bordering South Australia and the Northern Territory. Its administrative centre is in the town of Bedourie. Like most places in Queensland with the "Diamantina" na ...
,
Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...
, Australia. It was built . It was added to the
Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. A ...
on 21 October 1992.


The town

Birdsville was known as ''Diamantina Crossing'' from the 1870s when a rough depot was set up there by Matthew Flynn but, by 1882, the name ''Birdsville'' was in common use. It was adopted in the 1885 survey and was formalised at the proclamation of town in 1887. Many of Australia's pioneering European explorers travelled through the Birdsville district well before the town was gazetted. Monuments to acknowledge the feats of Captain Charles Sturt,
Burke and Wills The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the ...
,
Cecil Madigan Cecil Thomas Madigan (15 October 1889 – 14 January 1947) was an Australian explorer and geologist, academic, aerial surveyor, meteorologist, author and officer of the British army. He was born in Renmark, South Australia. His family had associ ...
and others are located throughout the town.


The hotel

The hotel, a singled-storeyed sandstone building, was erected for publican William Blair. The earliest section is likely to have been constructed in 1883 (possibly from stone quarried at a site about from the town), as the first licence for this hotel was issued to William Blair in that year. On the official Birdsville town survey plan of mid-1885, the building is marked as Wm Blair's hotel. On 24 February 1886, Blair purchased from the Crown, for , the allotment at the corner of Adelaide and Burt streets which contained the hotel. A month earlier he had bought for the allotment at the rear, which contained a fenced yard and had frontages to Burt & Graham streets; also an unimproved allotment adjacent to this, fronting Graham Street, for . Each block comprised . Following Blair's death in 1898, title to all three blocks passed to Queensland Trustees (Charles H Morton was the licensee during this period), then to the Hayden family in 1912, the Gaffney family in 1918, and the Dixon family in 1947. In 1979, a sale was concluded with Australian adventurer Dick Smith but failed when the hotel burned down the day after contracts were signed. The hotel later featured as the major waypoint on Smith's Bourke to Burketown Bash charity race held in 1985. In 1980, David Brook, a descendant of the Gaffney family, and his friend Kim Fort purchased the hotel and held it for 40 years until selling to its current owners Courtney and Talia Ellis, co-founders of Outback Spirit Tours. The building continues to function as a hotel, and has become nationally famous. With its longevity, romantic remoteness, and as a focus for festivities associated with the annual Birdsville Races, the Birdsville Hotel has become an outback icon. It is understood that in 1905 a cyclone destroyed all of the structures on the site other than those constructed in stone. In 1964 the southeast corner of the building collapsed, also as a result of a cyclone. This section was reconstructed -91, although not to original detail. A fire destroyed the front bar, also in 1964; this has been rebuilt. The major changes to the building have been the replacement of the front verandah, additions to the northern end, and reconstruction of the southeast section. Internally, no original finishes appear to exist as the floors have been laid in slate, walls plastered and painted, and ceilings altered. The building however retains its essential character.


Description

The Birdsville Hotel is a single-storeyed building constructed of local stone rendered and scribed. It has elevations to Burt and Adelaide Streets and the corner of the building at the street intersections has been truncated marking the original main entrance. The
hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...
is clad with
corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a ...
and is concealed by a low
masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...
raised at the corner to carry the words "Birdsville Hotel" and "Established 1884". An
awning An awning or overhang is a secondary covering attached to the exterior wall of a building. It is typically composed of canvas woven of acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tightly over a li ...
of corrugated iron supported by timber posts and decorated by a scalloped timber valance runs along the street elevations and is also truncated at the corner. Quoining at the windows and doors is picked out in a dark colour, as it has been since at least the 1920s. There are extensive modern additions including a
beer garden A beer garden (German: ''Biergarten'') is an outdoor area in which beer and food are served, typically at shared tables shaded by trees. Beer gardens originated in Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital city, in the 19th century, and remain co ...
and extra bars. Across the road from the hotel () is a monument to Augustus Poeppel, who surveyed the borders between Queensland and South Australia.


Heritage listing

Birdsville Hotel was listed on the
Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. A ...
on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. The Birdsville Hotel, erected , survives as an important link with the earliest establishment of pastoral settlement in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland. The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage. The place is rare as one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the former Royal Hotel and the 1888-90 police station and courthouse. These contribute significantly to the historic character of the town which, in the last quarter of the 20th century, became a principal Queensland tourist attraction. The Birdsville Hotel is also a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and besides being important in illustrating its type, also has the potential, through physical investigation and
documentary research Documentary research is the use of outside sources, documents, to support the viewpoint or argument of an academic work. The process of documentary research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of ...
, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings. The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. The Birdsville Hotel is also a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and besides being important in illustrating its type, also has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The Birdsville Hotel is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. The place is rare as one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the former Royal Hotel and the 1888-90 police station and courthouse. These contribute significantly to the historic character of the town which, in the last quarter of the 20th century, became a principal Queensland tourist attraction. The place has aesthetic value, and is important in defining the Birdsville townscape. The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. The Birdsville Hotel has social value as an outback cultural icon of national significance, a place that has become part of central Australian legend.


References


Attribution


External links

{{Commons category-inline, Birdsville Hotel 1884 establishments in Australia Hotel buildings completed in 1884 Queensland Heritage Register Birdsville, Queensland Hotels in Queensland Pubs in Queensland Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register