ESK, QUEENSLAND

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A pretty, historic township, there are a number of interesting historic buildings in an area which includes the elegant Bellevue and Caboonbah Homesteads. Brisbane Valley Tourism.
Location: 110 km north west of Brisbane; 70 km from Ipswich.
Origin of name: derived from Mount Esk and a pastoral run (Eskdale) named by pastoralist David Graham and James Ivory (1820-1887), when they occupied the run in 1843. The name may have been coined by Ivory after his home in Scotland although there are at least four rivers in Britain with this name also. Though the railway station name had been Esk since the line opened from Lowood in August 1886, the townhsip had been officially named Gallanani in 1870. In 1913 it was changed to Esk.
Brief history: the area was settled by European pastoralists in the 1840s after the NSW Government had opened up the land around the penal colony at Moreton Bay. One of them was the huge Wivenhoe run in the 1840s. The Bellevue Homestead was built in 1893. Free settlers began moving into the area during the 1850s and 1860s.
Natural features: Glen Rock; Mt Esk; Ravensbourne National Park; Crows Nest Falls.
Built features: Wivenhoe Dam; Somerset Dam; townships of Crows Nest, Toogoolawah and Ravensbourne.
Heritage features: The Club Hotel; old Esk Record building; St Mel's Roman Catholic Church; old Staging Post Inn; St Agnes' Church of England (1920) and Rectory (1884); Caboonbah Homestead (1890); Bellevue Homestead (1893, originally located on the banks of the Brisbane River, it was moved some kilometres to Coominya in 1975 when the site was flooded by the Wivenhoe Dam)