Barbers's Shop is a heritage-listed former barber shop at 34 Cedar Street,

Yungaburra Yungaburra is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Yungaburra had a population of 1,272 people. Geography Yungaburra is on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. The ...

Tablelands Region The Tablelands Region is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia inland from the city of Cairns, Queensland, Cairns. Established in 2008, it was preceded by four previous local government areas ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. It was built . It was also known as Burra Inn Restaurant and The Workshop. 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. As ...

on 21 October 1992.

History

The shop is one of a pair of simple timber shops constructed in the mid-1920s for the Williams family and was originally a barber's shop. The first Europeans on the

Atherton Tablelands The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau, which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It has very deep, rich basaltic soils and the main industry is agriculture. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the ...

were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time the Tablelands railway from the port of

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached

Mareeba Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the water ...

in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement, which had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah. The land on which the shop was later built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910, Ned Lisha, a storekeeper, acquiring Lot 16. The Railway Commissioner acquired six acres and the position of the new Yungaburra railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located towards the north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway. In 1912 Archibald Hendren bought this land, taking out a mortgage for on it, but then sold it to Albert Soffe Williams. His father, Henry S. Williams, had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to

tick Ticks are parasitic arachnids of the order Ixodida. They are part of the mite superorder Parasitiformes. Adult ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length depending on age, sex, and species, but can become larger when engorged. Ticks a ...

in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the business was continued by his family under the name of "Estate H.S. Williams". In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, the railway line reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill, a store and a large hotel for the Williams family opposite the railway station, and a number of shops and houses. In 1918,a new title to the land was issued in the name of Estate H.S. Williams Limited. In 1926, the

Gillies Highway The Gillies Highway is a road that runs from Gordonvale in the Cairns Region through the Gillies Range (part of the Great Dividing Range) to Atherton in the Tablelands Region, both in Queensland, Australia. Its official name is Gillies Range ...

between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. It is thought that the shop was constructed around this time and was probably a pair with the adjacent shop, also on lot 16. A barber and hairdresser are thought to have first occupied this shop. In 1954, the land was subdivided into 2 blocks so that each shop was on a separate title. It passed out of Williams family hands in 1976 and has changed hands several times since. By 1982 it had become a restaurant, the Burra Inn Restaurant. In 2016, it was a pump and irrigation store.

Description

The Barber's Shop is a single storey timber building, rectangular in form, with its short axis towards the street. The building is level with the street at the front and is set on stumps of increasing height towards the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. The shop has a stepped parapet and a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

and hipped roof clad in corrugated metal. It has a canvas

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 fiber, acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tight ...

to the street. The shopfront has a central recessed entry flanked by display windows. The interior is simple with timber walls and floors and has been modified to suit its use as a restaurant.

Heritage listing

The Barber's Shop was listed on the

on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. As an early commercial building, the shop marks the emergence of Yungaburra's role as a gateway to the Tablelands following the arrival of the railway in 1910 and the commencement of a road link with the coast in 1920. This facilitated the growth of agriculture and dairying on the Tablelands and heralded the development of tourism in the area. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The shop is an example of the type of simple timber commercial building that served many new settlements. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra. The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history. As a building constructed as part of the Williams Estate, the shop has an important association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra and the Atherton Tableland.

References

Attribution

External links