Kenilworth Homestead

The Kenilworth Homestead property, located on a bend of the picturesque Mary River about 1km north of the town of Kenilworth, currently operates as a camping and outdoor education centre. You can pitch a tent on the riverbank or hire a caravan. Kenilworth was one of the earliest cattle stations in the district established by Richard Joseph Smith in 1850. He grazed 800 cattle here and on adjoining leases, and by 1858 established a boiling-down works near Ipswich to process the cattle. The next resident Isaac Moore arrived in 1863 after success on the Victorian goldfields. Moore reputedly commissioned cabinetmakers from the Orkney Isles to build the house around 1865. From the 1880s to the 1920s the property was substantially reduced in size through resumption and subdivision, including the 1924 establishment of the Kenilworth township. Owners from 1925, the Rowe family, developed the property as a farm-stay and school camp site. The Rowes have initiated reconciliation celebrations with the traditional owners, the Gubbi Gubbi people. The property now includes a number of relocated buildings, and a reconstructed slab hut, replicating the housing style of the 1850s. The homestead is within the park grounds and is privately-owned and not publically accessible.