Jimbour House

Jimbour House is a heritage-listed homestead on one of the earliest stations established in the Darling Downs Region. The house was an ambitious structure in terms of size, style and finish, and is unique in Queensland as the only genuinely grand country house in the English manner to be built in the state.

In 1873, Brisbane architects Richard Suter and Annesley Wesley Voysey, were commissioned by Joshua Peter Bell to design a new sandstone house, as the main residence on Jimbour Station. Work on Jimbour House commenced in late 1874 and was completed by early 1877.

Following the death of Joshua Peter Bell in 1881, Jimbour House remained the home of his wife, Lady Margaret Miller Bell, and she remained there until circa 1912. By this time, all but 100acres of the original property had been sold, and in the early 1920s the house on its 100 acres was sold by order of the mortgagee, the Queensland National Bank, with title transferred in October 1922 to Charles Wippell.

In 1923, Roma pastoralist Wilfred Adams Russell purchased Jimbour Station and Jimbour House from Charles Wippell, and the title was transferred in January 1925. At the time of Wilfred Russell's purchase, Jimbour House was derelict, with several of the ceilings collapsed and only parts of the building habitable.

From 1924 to 1925 Wilfred Russell commenced a major restoration to the house, with the gardens being redesigned and extended by Brisbane landscape designer Harry Stokes. Wilfred Russell and his wife also attempted to discover and collect the original Jimbour House furniture, which had been sold at auction in 1912.

Wilfred Russell died in 1932, and the management of Jimbour passed to his son Charles Russell. Charles Russell died in 1977, but Jimbour House and Jimbour Station remain the property of the Russell family.

Jimbour House was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.