Mount Abundance Homestead, Heritage homestead near Roma, Queensland, Australia
Mount Abundance Homestead is a single-story timber residence with a wide verandah extending across three sides and attached outbuildings on the southern bank of Bungeworgorai Creek. The structure retains its original timber frame walls, chamferboards, and tongue-and-groove ceilings, though corrugated iron now covers what was once a timber shingle roof.
Allan MacPherson took up the Mount Abundance run in 1847 after following Thomas Mitchell's route; Mitchell had named the mount in 1846. After conflicts with local Indigenous people, MacPherson withdrew his sheep in late 1849, left cattle, and returned to England. He sold the run to Stephen Spencer in 1856, and Spencer built the timber homestead around 1860.
The homestead's post office opened in September 1861 and closed at the end of 1863, when the new Roma post office took over. The Spencers ran a supply store and grew the district's first wheat, also experimenting with grape vines, figs, peaches and apricots.
The property lies roughly 5 kilometers (3 miles) west of Roma via the Warrego Highway. Visitors should plan for rural access conditions and check whether advance arrangements are needed to view the site on private land.
The woolshed southwest of the homestead was reputed to be one of the largest in Queensland in the early 1880s. The Spencers also grew the district's first wheat and experimented with grape vines, figs, peaches and apricots. Only the homestead and the quarters behind it survive from the former station complex.
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