Glenmore Homestead, Heritage homestead in Parkhurst, Australia

Glenmore Homestead stands on the east bank of the Fitzroy River at Parkhurst, seven kilometres northwest of Rockhampton. Its surviving buildings show several early dwelling types of Central Queensland: a log cabin built in 1859 by John Arthur McCartney, a slab cottage built in 1858 as a hotel at Parkhurst and moved here in 1861, and a limestone brick cottage built in 1862 by Dennis Cifuentes as the start of an unfinished hacienda-style homestead.

Samuel Birkbeck purchased the property in 1864 and transformed it from a sheep farm into a cattle station by importing several hundred head of livestock from Texas. Under his management and that of his descendants, the place became an established agricultural enterprise in central Queensland.

The slab homestead, known as the Bush Inn, was built around 1858 as an inn on the road to the Canoona goldfield and moved to Glenmore in 1861. The limestone brick cottage was begun in 1862 by Dennis Cifuentes, a Mexican who came out with the Birkbeck family, as the start of a hacienda-style homestead that was never completed. The Birkbeck family lived in the original homestead until the 1980s, when it opened to the public.

The homestead sits on the Fitzroy River and is accessible to visitors interested in early European settlement history in Australia. The site serves today as a venue for special events and celebrations, making it possible to combine a visit with other activities.

The log cabin is believed to have been built by leaseholder John Arthur McCartney in 1859, not 1858, and is reputed to be the oldest building north of the Fitzroy River. In the last fifty years it has served mainly for storage. The four-roomed slab house and a second log cabin that stood here are no longer extant.