Isis Downs Woolshed, Heritage-listed shearing shed in Isisford, Queensland, Australia.
The Isis Downs Woolshed is a prefabricated steel shearing shed clad in corrugated iron, completed in 1914 to a design by Kay, MacNicol and Company Engineers. Its interior forms a large semicircular space with 52 shearing stands arranged around the curve, while the flat far side holds wool bins and presses. Large rectangular ventilation shutters are spaced around the curved facade.
Isis Downs station was first leased on 1 January 1867 by Charles Lumley Hill, W St John Holberton and W B Allen, and was named after the Isis River in England. Robert Selmon Whiting and Sir Rupert Clarke acquired it in 1910, when it covered over 200,000 hectares and carried a similar number of sheep. Their timber shed with 100 shearing stands burned down in September 1912, and the present steel shed was completed in 1914.
The run was named after the Isis River in England, the upper reaches of the Thames, and the nearby town took the name Isisford in 1897 because it stood near a ford not far from the station. The shed served as the "masthead" station of the Clarke-Whiting pastoral holdings.
The shed stands on Isisford-Blackall Road, on the flat far side of which are the wool bins and presses, with sheep yards on the immediate exterior of the curve. The steel was once carted from Malverton, near Blackall, and installed under manager Frank Luck. The site is remote, so plan supplies and shelter before setting out.
The shed's semicircular plan placed 52 shearing stands around the curve, with sheep yards directly outside and wool bins and presses on the flat far side. Steel came from Dorman Long and Co. of Melbourne, the firm later associated with the Sydney Harbour Bridge; it was shipped from Middlesbrough to Melbourne, then to Rockhampton and by rail to Malverton before being carted to the property.
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