Millchester is a

rural residential A hobby farm (also called a lifestyle block, acreage living, or rural residential) is a smallholding or small farm that is maintained without expectation of being a primary source of income. Some are held simply to bring homeowners closer to n ...

town and

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

in the

Charters Towers Region The Charters Towers Region is a local government area in North Queensland, Australia southwest of, and inland from the city of Townsville, based in Charters Towers. Established in 2008, it was preceded by two previous local government areas whic ...

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. In the , the suburb of Millchester had a population of 543 people.

Geography

Although historically the town centre is on Jardine Street Street (between Macdonald Street and Palmer Road) opposite the

Venus State Battery Venus State Battery is a heritage-listed Stamping mill, stamper battery at MacDonald Street, Millchester, Queensland, Millchester, Charters Towers, Queensland, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1872 ...

, most of that area is currently used for

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

. The land use is a mix of residential, grazing and some quarrying.

History

Millchester State School opened on 21 September 1874. Charters Towers School of Distance Education opened on 27 January 1987 as part of Australia's

School of the Air School of the Air is a generic term for correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is ...

. When the school opened, it relied on

HF radio High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation for the band of radio waves with frequency between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten decameters (ten to one ...

(using six 1000 watt transmitters) to speak with the students (with one person speaking at a time), the postal system to deliver printed materials, with occasional face-to-face opportunities in the field or at "camps" held in a major town. In 2002, the school replaced radio with

teleconferencing A teleconference or telecon is a live exchange of information among several people remote from one another but linked by a communications system. Terms such as audio conferencing, telephone conferencing, and phone conferencing are also sometime ...

, enabling simultaneous conversations between teacher and student. From 2010, it became possible to incorporate

video-conferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...

Demographics

In the , the suburb of Millchester had a population of 581 people. In the , the suburb of Millchester had a population of 543 people. In the , the suburb of Millchester had a population of 543 people.

Heritage listings

Millchester has a number of

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...

sites, including: * MacDonald Street:

* Charters Towers mine shafts *

Stone kerbing, channels and footbridges of Charters Towers The Stone kerbing, channels and footbridges of Charters Towers is a heritage-listed group of water infrastructure at various locations in Charters Towers City, Queensland, Charters Towers City, Millchester, Queensland, Millchester, Queenton, Qu ...

Education

Millchester State School is a government primary (Prep–6) school for boys and girls at on the corner of Bluff and Phillipson Roads (). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 162 students with 15 teachers (12 full-time equivalent) and 11 non-teaching staff (8 full-time equivalent). Charters Towers School of Distance Education is a government primary and secondary (Early Childhood to Year 12) distance education school for boys and girls in

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

locations without access to conventional schools. The school's motto is "Distance is no barrier". The teachers are at 15-23 Brisk Street () in Millchester. In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 2,137 students with 70 teachers (69 full-time equivalent) and 20 non-teaching staff (18 full-time equivalent). It includes a

special education Special education (also known as special-needs education, aided education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, and SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual di ...

program (Prep–12). There is no conventional secondary school in Millchester. The nearest conventional secondary school is

Charters Towers State High School Charters Towers State High School (CTSHS) is a public co-educational secondary school, located in the Charters Towers suburb of Charters Towers City, Queensland, Australia. It is administered by the Queensland Department of Education, with an ...

in Charters Towers City to the north-west.

Attractions

Venus Gold Battery is a tourist attraction showcasing the gold mining history of the area (). It has guided tours and video-presentations.

References

External links

* {{Charters Towers Region Suburbs of Charters Towers Towns in Queensland Mining towns in Queensland