Caboonbah Homestead, Heritage homestead site in Brisbane Valley, Queensland, Australia
Caboonbah Homestead was a timber house built in 1889–1890 for Henry Plantagenet Somerset on a 120-foot bank above the Brisbane River, now Lake Wivenhoe. It had locally made bricks, Dinmore chimney bricks and a shingled roof. Destroyed by fire in 2009, it was removed from the Queensland Heritage Register in 2014.
The homestead was built in 1889-1890 just before the area faced major flooding in 1893. Its founder established one of Queensland's first flood warning systems at this location to help the community anticipate future river rises.
The homestead was built for Henry Plantagenet Somerset and Katherine Rose Somerset, who lived there until 1935. Katherine co-founded the Stanley Memorial Hospital, and in 1905 the couple founded the Caboonbah Undenominational Church, donating land and timber. Henry held services in the homestead or neighbouring barns before the church was built.
The homestead no longer stands: it burned down in 2009 and was removed from the Queensland Heritage Register in 2014, so there is no museum to visit. The site lies at the end of Esk-Kilcoy Road on the 37-metre bank above the Brisbane River junction, now beside Lake Wivenhoe. Two Somerset children are buried on the slope below the front of the former house.
Caboonbah takes its name from the Aboriginal term "Cabon gibba", meaning big rock, after the 120-foot (37 m) bank of the Brisbane River below the house. Two of the Somersets' ten children are buried on the slope in front of the homestead.
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