Willards Farm

Redland City Council has fully restored the heritage-listed Willards Farm and surrounding dairy outbuildings.

The farmhouse, which was built in the late 1800s, was in very poor repair and facing demolition in 2016 when Council stepped in to buy the property to protect the region's early farming history.

It is believed the former farm was developed by the Willard family in phases from the 1860s and it remains a significant example of early Queensland agricultural history, building techniques and dairy infrastructure.

James Willard, an agricultural labourer from England, and Margaret Jones, a servant from Ireland, married in 1860. During the next 21 years they had 11 children.

The Willards milled timber on site, grew crops including maize and sweet potatoes, and operated a dairy herd before also opening a cattle dip on the land in the early 1900s.

The original farmhouse consisted of a two-room house with verandahs and a separate kitchen wing. In about 1910 James connected another wing to the farmhouse, adding two extra rooms to the home.

Some property features hint that the Willards were relatively prosperous – the milking shed included an early mechanical milking machine and the iron railings around the farmhouse veranda were a luxurious addition for the time. 

James died in 1914 and with Margaret's death in 1916, the property was passed on to two of their children, eldest son William and unmarried daughter Margaret, who operated the dairy until the mid-1920s.

During the next 90 or so years the property was sold many times to owners including the Cotton, Daniel, Brook and Brandt families.

Heritage protection

Willards Farm is an important architectural example of a subtropical Queenslander farmhouse. 

In breathing new life into the property during the restoration process, it was a priority for Council to protect the heritage values of each individual structure – the homestead, milking shed, creamery, garage, elevated water tank and cistern.

All work was overseen by heritage specialists and replicated traditional methods where possible.

• The original timber used in the buildings was milled locally to non-standard sizes. With much of it needing replacing, the restoration team established a timber mill on site where they could create customised pieces, stamping each for clear future identification.
• Traditional construction methods have been replicated in the milking shed, with timber dowels used instead of nails.
• The team painstakingly scraped back about 20 layers of paint and sought advice from heritage specialists to determine the restoration colour scheme.
• The concrete floor in the creamery is an early example of using thermal mass to create a cool and constant environment.
• The cistern – which isn’t a well, but an inground rainwater storage tank – is an early pioneering example of ingenuity. An 8m deep hole was dug, lined with a single skin of local bricks and then rendered for water proofing. Rainwater from the farmhouse roof was piped into the cistern and then pumped by windmill - into a tank for the family’s water supply, and water troughs for the cattle.
• More than 600 design decisions were made by the restoration team and approved by the heritage specialist throughout the process.

The restoration has been designed to preserve these important buildings while also celebrating the district's original farming heritage. Visitors will enjoy a snapshot of the working life and home of a typical family dairy farm of the late 1800s to the 1950s.

The future

Restoration of Willards Farm launched the Birkdale Community Precinct program of works.

The precinct is the largest, most anticipated and most diverse community project ever delivered by Redland City Council with planning the result of more than two years of extensive community consultation.

The precinct master plan released in 2023 envisaged that portions of the 62 hectare site would open pre-2032 with the timeline determined by the construction of infrastructure such as access roads, car parking, set-down areas, footpaths, amenities buildings and landscaping.

In the long term, Willards Farm will become a welcome gate for visitors to Birkdale Community Precinct.