Laidley
Parade of The Dungarees in Queen Street, Brisbane, 1915
Is a town (pop. 2,858) situated in the Lockyer Valley of South East Queensland, Australia. The township lies 83 km west of Brisbane, the state capital. The local industry has been dominated by agriculture since the end of the 19th century. Laidley has long regarded itself as “Queensland’s Country Garden”. Fruit and vegetable production features prominently, with the majority of beetroot grown in Australia coming from the Laidley district.
History
Allan Cunningham first explored the area in 1829. Cunningham named it Laidley’s Plain after the Deputy Commissary General of the colony of New South Wales. The town developed around a wagon stop on the main road route between Ipswich and Toowoomba. A stop was needed after the climb over the small Little Liverpool Range west of Marburg. By the 1850s the area was being cleared for sheep grazing. In the mid 1870s the railway line from Grandchester stopped at a railway station 1.5 km north of the town. Between 1911 and 1955, a branch railway line ran from Laidley along the Laidley Creek to the settlement at Mulgowie. The town was the centre of the Shire of Laidley, a former local government area.
Bill Gunn Dam
Cyclone damaged home in country Queensland, ca. 1925
1.5 km (0.93 mi) west of the town of Laidley in South East Queensland, was developed to increase the capacity of the existing Lake Dyer, a natural lake adjacent to Laidley Creek, a tributary of Lockyer Creek. The dam was named after the Australian politician Bill Gunn and is managed by SunWater. The 1,170 m (3,840 ft) long earthfill structure has a maximum height of 12 m (39 ft) and an overflow spillway which diverts excess water into Laidley Creek. The dam has a storage capacity of 6950 ML and a maximum surface area of 108 ha. Water from the dam is used for irrigation, in the densely cropped Lockyer Valley. Bill Gunn Dam suffers from high drawdowns and summer evaporation which together with phosphate fertilizer creates significant blue green algae problems. In November 2005, during drought conditions in the area, the dam’s water level declined to just 1%.
Facilities
A boating permit is not required, however a maximum of eight boats are allowed at on the lake at once. A single concrete boat ramp and some facilities for visitors, including campers, are available at a lakeside caravan park which is managed by the local council.
Fishing
The dam is stocked with silver perch and golden perch, while bony bream, spangled perch and eel-tailed catfish breed naturally. A Stocked Impoundment Permit is required to fish in the dam. The poor water quality means that fish caught in the dam may, at times of an algae outbreak, be a health hazard if eaten.
Laidley Shire
Picking cotton on S. Wilson's farm at Thornton, near Laidley
Laidley is a rural town of 2800 people, 65 km west of central Brisbane. It is situated on the Ipswich to Toowoomba railway line which runs in an arc south of the Warrego Highway. Allan Cunningham identified the area in 1829, during his exploration of south-east Queensland and the Darling Downs. He named it Laidley Plain after James Laidley, New South Wales Commissary General, writing favourably of its pastoral and agricultural potential in his report to Governor Darling that same year. The Laidley plain is enclosed by foothills of the dividing range and is flanked by the Laidley Creek, joining the Lockyer Creek to the north. European settlement began with squatters in the 1840s, J.P. Robinson taking up a run of some 150,000 acres on the Laidley Plain.
A town was surveyed in 1858 at a stopping place on the Laidley-Rosewood Road from Ipswich to Toowoomba. Named Laidley, the town proved to be ill-located when the railway line opened in 1866, as activity moved to the railway station. ‘New Laidley’ overtook old Laidley, where tourists will now find a pioneer village. There were two primary schools, Laidley South (1864) and Laidley North (1889). Laidley came under the Tarampa local-government division, which included towns such as Lowood and Marburg where German Lutheran farmers had settled. The Laidley Plain took numerous German settlers when it was subdivided for farm selections. By 1893 the population was approaching 600. The Australian Handbook for that year described the town as follows:
Laidley a post-town and railway station on the Ipswich and Toowoomba Line, 51 miles W. from Brisbane. Hotels: Railway, Exchange, and Queensland Natoinal. It is situated 353 feet above sea-level, on the creek of the same name in the county of Churchill, and has a money-order, telegraph, and savings, bank office, branches of Q. N. and Royal Banks, court-house, police barracks, and Victoria and Norman Halls. Tradesmen: Six storekeepers, two saddlers, three blacksmiths, three butchers: two State schools, and Church of England, Primitive auctioneer: two State Schools, and Church of England, Primitive: Methodist and Presbyterian places of worship; school of art (library only), lodges of Masons and Oddfellows, and a brass band. Local Societies: Agricultural and Industrial Society, Debating Society, and branch of Women’s Christian Temperance Union. A bore for artesian water was sunk by the Government to a depth of 2,600 feet, but no artesian water was obtained. Agricultural district. At the old township, 1 1/4 miles from the railway. Population of town about 500, of census district 1,380. Newspaper: Lockyer Star (tri-weekly).
Whitehouse family at Christmas time at the Tupcott property, Laidley district
There was considerable German Lutheran settlement in and around Laidley, and their cultural influence continues to this day. Laidley prospered in the early 1900s. As an important town in the flourishing Lockyer Valley, one of Queensland’s most successful agricultural districts, it witnessed considerable growth and development activity during the first decade to 1910. Various buildings were erected in the town during this period as businesses commenced or expanded. Several of these structures – including the Exchange Hotel, G. Wyman’s grocery store and a former bakery in Patrick Street – remain in existence and are entered on the Queensland heritage register. Turn-of-the-century optimism led to Laidley separating from the surrounding shire (itself established in 1888, on severance from the Tarampa district) in 1902. Laidley town became a separate borough, although it was reunited with Laidley Shire in 1916.
This period of economic prosperity in the opening years of the twentieth century saw Laidley’s population grow above 1000 by 1910. By the 1940s, it had moved to above 1400. Most of the early businesses and facilities continued, together with the Laidley Herald, the Rex cinema, a local electric light company, the Lockyer General Hospital, a chamber of commerce, a memorial bowling club and a patriotic league. A railway service to Mulgowie began in 1911 (operating up to 1955). By 1912, there were six churches and a Catholic primary school established in the town. The Laidley Valley, assisted by water from the Bill Gunn Dam (formerly the Dyer Swamp west of the town), is a fruit and vegetable supplier to Brisbane and Toowoomba. It also serves as a dormitory suburb for Toowoomba and Ipswich. Styling itself as Queensland’s Country Garden, Laidley hosts an annual garden competition and a Chelsea Flower Show, together with an annual agricultural show. Local German heritage is observed with a heritage day and German festival at Das Neumann Haus (1893), an elaborate timber house built by a German family and bequeathed to the shire for a museum and local history centre. Laidley has a hospital/medical centre, the Tabel Lutheran Home (1954), bowls, golf and swimming facilities, a high school (1985) and a cultural centre. Four of the original five hotels continue. There are two lookouts for viewing the town, and the landscaped Narda Lagoon Conservation Area near the pioneer village, south of Laidley, provides pleasant picnicking grounds for visitors and locals alike.
Laidley
Quiet rural-commuter township to the west of Brisbane
Parade of the Dungarees through Queen Street, Brisbane, 1915
Laidley lies 83 km west of Brisbane and 108 m above sea level. It is a sleepy little township calling itself the ‘Country Garden of Queensland’ because the rich soils surrounding the town support mixed farming, vegetable growing for the Brisbane markets, dairying and cotton. In recent times it has been by-passed a few kilometres to the north by the Warrego Highway from Brisbane to Toowoomba. The first European to explore the Laidley area was Allan Cunningham who, travelling through the area in 1829, named it after the New South Wales deputy-commissary-general James Laidley. The area was settled in the 1840s by J. P. Robinson who called his property Laidley Plains Station. By 1879 it had been officially proclaimed although it wasn’t until 1902 that the Laidley borough was officially announced. The town wanders through the countryside and is notable for a statue of a Clydesdale in the main street (symbol of the contribution made to the town by the animal), the Das Neumann house and an interesting pioneer village museum.
Clydesdale Statue
The Clydesdale Statue gives notice that once a year the Laidley Heavy Horse Field Day Association holds a Show and Field Day. Animals come considerable distances to compete in the show.
Das Neumann Haus
Reception for The Dungarees in Albert Square, Brisbane, 1915
The Das Neumann Haus, easily located just off the main street on the corner of William and Patrick Streets, is one of those fascinating idiosyncratic buildings which can make an ordinary town seen quite special. It was built by Herman Neumann, a local carpenter and cabinet maker, and for many years was used as the family residence as well as a furniture showroom. It was handed over to the local council in 1983.
Laidley Historical Society Museum
Laidley has an excellent pioneer village with a superbly preserved slab hut as well as a an old gaol, general store, butchers shop and a number of other interesting buildings. The pioneer village is located where the old road through to Toowoomba used to go. It is fascinating, looking at the town which has now been by-passed by the Brisbane to Toowoomba road, to think that after 1865 it was the first stopping place for passengers who had caught the train from Ipswich to Grandchester and who were heading further west to Toowoomba, the Darling Downs and beyond. The Laidley Historical Society Museum is open Sundays 2.00 p.m. to 4.00 p.m. or by appointment and is located to the south of the town on an old paddock which used to be a resting paddock for the Cobb & Co horses.
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