Xavier and Sadie Herbert's Cottage (former)

This humble workers cottage was the home to Australian writer Xavier Herbert and his wife Sadie from 1951 until their deaths in 1984 and 1979 respectively. Situated adjacent to the Red Jacket Hotel in Redlynch, this private home is also visible from the Cairns to Kuranda Railway. Xavier liked to travel and bought the house for Sadie. She had been inspirational in the publication of one of his greatest novels, Capricornia (1938). Despite them both having the wanderlust, it continued to be their home for 30 years. While Xavier built a writer’s cottage in the back-yard, he liked to go bush while developing drafts for potential novels. This is the only house in Australia with a strong connection to Xavier Herbert. He was able to make some renovations to the property in the 1970s from the proceeds of the 1975 Miles Franklin Award for his novel ‘Poor Fellow My Country’, the longest novel published in Australia at 850,000 words. Herbert was an early advocate of self-sufficiency, experimenting with battery power in the cottage. The writer’s shed, known as the 'million dollar dog house’, was demolished in the mid-1990s. This is a private home and not publically accessible.