Bedourie Pisé House and Aboriginal Tracker's Hut

About

Bedourie Pisé House is a heritage-listed house and archaeological site at 5 Herbert Street, Bedourie, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1897. It is also known as Bedourie Pisé House, Aboriginal Tracker's Hut and Bedourie Mud Hut. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 31 May 2019.

The Bedourie Pisé House was built in 1897 as the residence of Mary Brodie, local landowner and proprietor of Bedourie's Royal Hotel. The use of pisé ( rammed earth construction ) was an uncommon form of building in Queensland. The building was used as a dwelling, a council meeting place and possibly a temporary hotel, but fell into disrepair before being purchased by the Diamantina Shire Council and restored in the early 21st century. Moved to stand behind the Pisé House in 2011, the Aboriginal Tracker's Hut was built at the Bedourie Police Station in 1947 as lodgings for police tracker Doctor Jack and his wife Norah. The shelter is typical of the accommodation standard built for Aboriginal trackers employed by the Queensland police in the 20th century.

The small, isolated town of Bedourie is located near Eyre Creek in the Channel Country flood plains of central western Queensland, approximately 1,130 kilometres (700 mi) west of Rockhampton and 1,182 kilometres (734 mi) north of Adelaide. The town is on the edge of the traditional lands of the Wangkamadla, Pitta Pitta, Mithaka, and Wangkangurru people. These people retained important knowledge of soaks, vital in the often dry country. Soaks or soakage or native wells) are hollows dug in freely permeable sediments, which allow water to seep through and soak in. Clean water can be dug up from the hollows. Sharing knowledge of the soaks was essential for survival and care of the land. Aboriginal people also used the major rivers, particularly the Georgina River, as water supply, travel route, and source of Dreaming stories.

The area now encompassing Bedourie was a meeting place, exchange centre and distribution area for pituri, a hallucinogenic plant containing high levels of nicotine. The country between the Georgina and Mulligan rivers was the primary source of pituri, which was used in hunting, ceremonies, and recreationally. This placed it at the centre of an important trade route, with people travelling hundreds of kilometres to the area to exchange high quality stone axes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa, medicines, and sea shells for pituri. The route was also significant for social and ritual trade, where songs, ceremonies, and knowledge were exchanged.

Following European expeditions, pastoralists occupied the Channel Country in the 1860s, stocking runs with cattle and sheep from South Australia. From 1884 Afghan cameleers, following the Aboriginal trade routes, transported goods from the newly opened Maree railway station in central South Australia, along the Channel Country rivers to Birdsville and Cloncurry. Afghan trading towns sprang up near the present sites of Birdsville and Bedourie, supporting camels transporting stores north and drovers moving stock south to the Adelaide sale yards. The Central Australia railway from Port Augusta reached Hergott Springs (later named Marree ) in 1884. Construction of the line began in 1878, with Darwin the intended terminus, It reached Oodnadatta in 1891 and terminated in Alice Springs in 1929. Date palms, a regular feature of stations along the track, were planted in the townships including Bedourie to provide shade and food for the cameleers.

In 1886, a township reserve named Bedouri - reputedly meaning "dust storm" - was proclaimed on Eyre Creek. After locals advised of the flooding risk, a new site was chosen further north, on the road from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Adelaide. Situated about two days' journey from Boulia in the north and Birdsville to the south, the township was one of six small settlements which became important refreshment and supply sites for surrounding pastoral stations and drovers bound for Adelaide. The land was taken from the Nappa, Marrawilla, Pierrie, and Glenlees runs. Blackall merchants AJ Haylock and Co established a general store and hotel in the yet-to-be proclaimed and surveyed township, importing building materials to the sparsely vegetated area. The survey of the township, completed in 1888, shows the location of the hotel, its kitchen, stable and horse yards (Allotment 1 of Section 1), and the store (Allotment 2 of Section 1), but no other structures. The hotel was 61 feet by 36 feet (18.6 x 11m) and the store 30 feet by 16 feet (9 x 4.9m), both were built of cypress. The site also contained a sheep yard with 500 sheep, cellar, flour frame, 'Chinaman's garden', and a stock of wines and spirits. A further advertisement in 1889 indicated that at least £1000 would secure the property.

Bedourie developed slowly, with the hotel at its centre. A publican's licence was issued for the Bedourie hotel, named the Royal, in May 1888, but AJ Haylock and Co advertised the hotel and store for sale or let two months later. The businesses were still unsold in May 1889, when the Bedourie town sites were offered for sale in Birdsville. Eleven allotments, including the hotel, store, and future site of the Pisé house, were purchased by Mary Dolan. Born Mary Ballard c. 1858, she had been raised in hotels in Victoria by her twice-widowed mother. In 1883 she married Andrew Carey Dolan, the manager of Breadalbane Station, on the Georgina River, and the couple moved to Birdsville. Andrew Dolan died in 1887, leaving Mary with one child and an £800 estate. Rate books indicate that Andrew Dolan owned Lot 4 section 5 on which there was a wooden dwelling house. The Bedourie town land, particularly the hotel and store, enabled Mary to provide an income for herself and her daughter. Mary's acquisition of the hotel also mirrored a tradition of female publicans in Australia, particularly of widows or deserted wives. Hotel keeping was one of the few occupations women could pursue in the 19th century, allowing childcare from a home base, and granting them legal and economic independence. Mary's father, David Ballard, had managed the St Agnes Hotel in Kyneton, Victoria during the 1850s. After his death in 1858, the approximate year of Mary's birth, her mother Margaret later acquired his liquor licence and managed the hotel while raising three small children. She married Robert Hall in 1861, had four more children, was widowed 1866, with another child born after Robert's death. Margaret continued to manage the St Agnes Hotel through to 1877, when she was declared insolvent. A study of Townsville female publicans reveals that numbers of female publicans rose dramatically in the early 1900s: a handful of women were hotel-keepers in the 1890s, but by 1902, half the hotels in town were run by women.

By 1891, Mary had become the principal business operator and service provider in Bedourie. Although very few people lived in the town, her hotel served passing drovers, pastoral station occupants, and visiting racegoers who attended Bedourie's annual horse races, which began in 1887. In addition to being the hotel proprietor, Mary was the town's postmistress, storekeeper, butcher, and wine and spirit merchant. She also grazed two flocks of sheep around Bedourie, and owned the town's boat. In 1890, she married John Gray Brodie, of Cluny Station, and the hotel, butcher, store, and wine and spirit businesses were transferred to Brodie from 1892. John Brodie, however, died in January 1895, leaving Mary with a further two children and a third expected. John and Mary's son was also named John Gray Brodie and their youngest daughter Grace was born in September 1895, after John's death. She continued to run the Bedourie businesses, inheriting them along with Brodie's £500 estate.

In 1897, the value of two of Mary's previously undeveloped sites (allotments 1 and 2 of section 5), leapt from £60 to £200. The allotments stood opposite the hotel and store on Bedourie's main street. The hotel and store were destroyed in a storm in October 1897, and the building erected on allotment 1 of section 5 - a small pisé house - may have served as a temporary hotel as well as residence, until a new hotel and store were built in 1898. The hotel and store were noted by travelling priest Father Hanley, visiting the town in late 1898. The hotel is still extant. It featured multiple external doors, and a large room with a fireplace at one end, similar to hotels in remote areas in South Australia.

The house employed an unusual construction method for Queensland, pisé de terre. Often known as pisé or mud construction, pisé de terre is an ancient building method in which loam (earth of low clay content) is rammed into temporary formwork to create rock-like walls. The compaction forces the soil particles together, requiring no additional strengthening. The method was traditionally used in Mediterranean, Central Asian countries, and parts of China, but fell out of use. It was "rediscovered" in France in the mid-18th century, reaching England about 1787, the United States of America around 1810–5 and Australia from the 1820s. It was one of several earthen building construction methods used in Australia, including structures made from mud brick, stones within a mud matrix, cob, adobe, and pisé.

While not widely used across Queensland, the method of pisé construction proved valuable in western Queensland, where building materials were difficult to come by. The limited vegetation provided insufficient material for construction, and while a sandstone quarry existed near Birdsville, allowing residents there to construct stone buildings, Bedourie, surrounded by desert sandhills and stony desert tableland soils, lacked a local stone cache. Pisé construction had several advantages, being "less than one-half the cost of Brick or Wood", "equal in appearance and strength to any stone building", and its material was "always procurable". Pisé had particular benefits in the arid climate of western Queensland: the buildings were not prone to deterioration, and were "cool in summer, warm in winter". A wide array of pisé buildings were constructed in the Channel Country, including Birdsville's first hotel; Windorah 's original police station (1884); hotels in Jundah, Windorah, and Canterbury ; and homestead buildings at Diamantina Lakes, Cullwilla, Daroo, Palpara, Mornay, St Albans, Toorajumpa, and Monika. St Paul's Anglican Church built in 1874 at Cleveland was also rumoured to be a pisé building, beneath a cement-rendered facade. Most of the pisé buildings did not survive, however. Two of the most renowned, the Windorah hotel and the JC hotel in Canterbury, burned down in 1954 and melted after the roof was removed, respectively.

The ease of construction was another advantage, with minimal equipment and expert knowledge needed. Information on erecting pisé buildings was easily procurable in the 1890s, with contemporary publications and newspapers providing detailed, illustrated instructions on the construction process. A pisé building could be constructed by a single person, though "a tradesman who understands the principle of the system and the materials" was recommended. Publications emphasised the strength and durability of the buildings, so long as a large projecting roof was provided to protect the walls from the weather, with verandahs on all sides also recommended.

In 1899, Mary Brodie married her third husband, James Craigie, owner of Alderley station and "uncrowned cattle king" of Boulia. Craigie, a South Australian, had initially worked at Mount Cornish Station, relocating to Roxborough Downs from 1878. He had six children with local Aboriginal woman Bunny Roxborough. Mount Cornish had also originally been a pisé building. Craigie relocated his business headquarters to Bedourie in April 1900, and Mary's property was transferred to James in 1901. Mary had purchased the hotel in June 1899 for £3000, installing her half-sister Ellen Talbot as manager, but Ellen's ill-health had forced her retirement. Mary sold the hotel in 1904. Mary briefly moved to Winton in 1902, where she owned and operated the Tattersalls Hotel, but returned to Bedourie in 1904. The current Tattersalls Hotel operated as the Club Hotel in 1899, and Tattersalls was located opposite the North Gregory. Mary sold the hotel to her future son-in-law, TJ O'Rourke, in October 1904. Tattersalls burnt down in 1925. In her absence, the Bedourie Pisé House was leased to the newly formed Diamantina Shire Council. Council meetings were held in Bedourie until March 1919, likely all in the pisé house.

The house was - and remained - one of the few buildings in Bedourie, which in December 1904 consisted of a public house, store, blacksmith's shop, a few dwellings, and a police station. A bore was added in 1905. Despite its small size, however, Bedourie's attractions drew regular visitors. A traveller in October 1910 described Bedourie as a "caravansary … an oasis in the desert" with hospitality courtesy of the Craigie family, and the town was "a favourite resort of cattlemen". The hotel issued its own currency and the large race-going crowds were managed under the watchful eye of publican "Mother Bedourie". "Mother Bedourie" was compared with the "Eulo Queen" Isabel Gray, also a thrice married publican who operated from a pisé building. It is unclear from reminiscences of the hotel whether "Mother Bedourie" referred to Mary Dolan/Brodie/Craigie, her successor Rose Gaffney, or both, but one article in 1947 did identify "Mrs Bedourie" as Mary Dolan-Brodie-Craigie.

James Craigie died in 1912, and his property was transferred to Mary. Mary transferred her southwest Queensland property to pastoralist Sidney Kidman and retired in 1914 to Brisbane, dying there in 1941. Kidman had acquired a wealth of grazing properties along two major droving paths linking Adelaide and northern Australia, giving rise to his reputation as the "Cattle King". By the time he acquired the Bedourie Hotel and pisé house, he was considering retirement. Kidman installed his cattle property manager, George Gaffney, as manager of the Bedourie Hotel, and Gaffney purchased the Pisé House in 1918, with a substantial mortgage of £1375.

The hotel and Pisé House remained in the ownership and occupation of the Gaffney family and descendants (including the Clanchys and Smiths) for the next several decades. The house, known variously as the "Mud House", "Mud Hut", or "The Cottage", was the family's residence through the school year. The generator shed and timber power poles behind the house were likely added during this time; Bedourie did not receive electricity until 1970, requiring residents to install their own generators to provide power. George and Rose Gaffney ran the Bedourie Hotel until November 1948, when their eldest son Alan and his wife Mona (Smith) took over the hotel and took up residence in the pisé house. Mona's father Charlie Smith had been manager of Cluny Station and Clerk of the Diamantina Divisional Board. During the Gaffney occupation, a pedal wireless was installed to communicate with John Flynn's Flying Doctor Service. George died in 1955 and the property was transferred to Rose. The pisé house was owned by Eileen Clanchy (nee Gaffney) from 1947 until 1966 when it was owned by various members of the Smith family who lived in the house but travelled to Ethabuka station during the school holidays. The complex interrelationships of the Smiths, Gaffneys, and Clanchys meant that the place was essentially in their ownership for 56 years. A bathhouse was also added. The Royal Hotel had hot and cold running water by 1917, but in 1930 and 1947 Bedourie residents were reported as taking their daily showers at the bore.

In 1940, the Bedourie Pisé House was recognised as one of the "coolest houses in Queensland", thanks largely to its pisé construction. Postwar building material shortages sparked a revival in the construction form, which had dwindled in the 20th century, as the cost of importing building materials to western Queensland decreased. By 1911, only 61 pisé houses were identified of Queensland's 125,800 dwellings. Despite the postwar revival, however, the number of Queensland pisé houses did not significantly grow, and weather, neglect or replacement took their toll on the older pisé buildings. In 2019, only two places which include pisé construction are entered on the Queensland Heritage Register: Welford Homestead residence (1875–1881, the first section of which is pisé or arguably cob ) and Irlam's Ant Bed Building (an 1890s part pisé, part antbed construction). Other 19th century pisé buildings known to exist in 2019 are: the Portland Downs homestead at Ilfracombe, central Queensland (1860s-early 1870s), the pisé men's quarters on Arrabury station, in far south-west Queensland (1880s), a pisé pavilion at Alice Downs homestead, and a pisé house on Boorara Cattle Station, near Hungerford (construction date unknown), and a pisé house Hughenden (construction date unknown). The Richmond "Mud Hut Hotel" appears to be of mud rather than rammed earth construction. Pisé construction experienced a brief revival in the mid-20th century, spurred on by postwar material shortages, but did not add significantly to the number of pisé buildings in Queensland.

Bedourie grew from the 1950s, with an airstrip, new residences, and a school constructed. The Diamantina Shire Council re-established itself in Bedourie in 1954, building a new shire hall. The Pisé House occupants departed in 1971, and the house was transferred to the Diamantina Shire Council in 1974. By 2002, the chimney and fireplace had been removed, the verandahs enclosed with corrugated iron sheets, and the house had fallen into disrepair. The council began repairs and stabilisation works on the Pisé House in 2003. In 2019, the Pisé House site also includes the generator shed and a bathhouse.

Policing in the Bedourie district began in 1882 with the opening of the Eyre Creek Native Mounted Police depot. Established in 1848, the Native Mounted Police was an armed retaliatory force engaged to displace and dispossess Aboriginal people of the land that European pastoralists intended to occupy. Aboriginal people had assisted the European expeditions to the Channel Country in the 1840s and 1860s, but in the 1870s, several violent incidents occurred in the district between Boulia and the border, including spearings of Europeans and Aboriginal deaths at the hands of the Burketown Native Police.

Pastoralists called for a police force in the area, and the Native Police depot was opened at Eyre Creek, a short distance from the future town of Bedourie. The depot lasted six years, closing in 1888, and was replaced by a permanent police station in 1889. The station building, constructed c. 1890, was a simple corrugated iron-clad structure which served as the office, accommodation and courthouse. The station was staffed by two constables and two Aboriginal trackers.