Tenterfield Station Homestead

Tenterfield Station is an outstanding example of a significant historic rural complex with a high degree of original fabric. The station includes an 1890s homestead and a group of rural station buildings, including barns, a blacksmith and butcher shop, and an iconic water tank stand. Its social and historical significance is of undeniable importance in its association with Sir Robert Ramsay Mackenzie who went on to become the first colonial Treasurer of Queensland, and Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson the first premier of NSW in 1856. Tenterfield Station Homestead was also the wedding reception venue of Australia’s favourite poet, Banjo Patterson, who married local girl Alice Walker in 1903.

About

Tenterfield Station is an integral part of the pastoral, agricultural and social history of the Northern New England Tablelands and the heritage town of Tenterfield.

Dating from the early 1840s, the Station was the springboard for European occupation and for the growth of Tenterfield town (gazetted on 7 October 2020).

As The Tenterfield Station editorial on Friday 11 October 1907, said: “Tenterfield Station… was the origin of this still small community, and was, indeed, the mother of this town.”

Its run of more than 140,000 acres (56,658 hectares) covered a huge part of the northern New England Tablelands from Bookookoorara in the north to BluffRock in the south, and for kilometres east and west of the Station. During the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, this vast holding was considerably reduced through land sales.

Today, Tenterfield Station’s elegant homestead remains a visible reminder of Tenterfield’s vibrant and fascinating past.