| Physical description: | Maryland Group:
Outstanding early homestead group consists of main building and its garden area, immediate outbuildings, stone cottage former winery and stone store, and gate keeper's cottage. These are all located on or near the landscaped hilltop. There is a second grouping down the slope, to the north, including a stone barn, stables, various sheds and a worker's cottage. Other sheds between these and the main homestead grouping are modern buildings of no particular interest. There is a second gate keeper's lodge at one of the two entrances on The Northern Road. All are set in a magnificent rural landscape, including a large dam between the hilltop and the road. There is another water feature to the west. The main homestead enjoys scenic views, east over Lowes and South Creek.
Main Building:
Large early colonial style house laid out on a rectangular plan. Despite gothic chimneys and classical verandah posts, overall styling is more traditional (Australian Georgian). Stone rubble construction with stuccoed, ashlar finish and stone quoining (now painted). Hipped, galvanised iron roof with sandstone chimneys. Skillion verandah on eastern and northern frontages with return to southern side. Supported by tuscan timber columns. A series of shuttered french doors open onto the stone flagged verandah. The main door features sidelights and skylights. Overall, simply but neatly styled with restrained detailing. The interior features are hexagonal skylight over the central hallway. The building is connected to an earlier residence at the rear (west), by the northern verandah.
Domestic Outbuildings:
There are four early structures at the rear (west side) of the main building. Three are connected to the main house, and each other, by verandahs. The largest of the three is rectangular in plan with a hipped corrugated iron roof. Has a simple skillion verandah with stop chamfered posts. Stuccoed walls. Doors and windows not original. Connected at the south west corner is a smaller sandstock brick structure, probably the original cookhouse. It has a hipped iron roof and skillion verandah. Connected to it in turn is the octagonal former meatroom. The fourth structure stands separately. It is rectangular, gabled building with vertical proportioning. Walls are of vertical boarding with a roof of corrugated iron.
Detached Kitchen:
Sandstock brick structure with corrugated iron hip roof and verandah. It has two front doorways and long rectangular windows. There are two separate rooms, one is a kitchen and the other is a laundry. There are two chimneys, a brick one at the back and an iron one at the front. The kitchen is connected to the homestead by a verandah and enclosed within a courtyard complex.
Meathouse:
An octagonal meathouse that is built from vertical weatherboards, with a conical roof, clad with corrugated iron and u-shaped gutters. It has a rectangular window with french shutters. It is connected to the detached kitchen by a rectangular weatherboard room. The meathouse is now used as a garden pavilion.
Workshop:
A rectangular vertical weatherboard building which faces the courtyard area containing the detached kitchen. It has a gabled roof with plain bargeboards and vents. The building has a number of rooms and an upper floor. The building is currently used for storing tools.
Guest-house:
A coursed rubble building with vermiculated stone quoins and stone sills. It has a hip end roof, clad with corrugated iron and a stone chimney. At the southern end of this building is a later addition constructed from ashlar masonry with a hipped roof. The early structure has two multi-paned windows. The two structures are joined together by a shallow gabled roof structure which is disguised behind french doors. The latest structure has a projecting bay window at the southern end. This building is used currently as a guest-house.
Upper Gate-house:
Gothic style gate-house with gabled roof built from ashlar sandstone with rock faced quoins and windows and stone sills. The front has a projecting gabled roof porch with decorated bargeboard. There is a scrolled string coursing around the entire structure. The front has two multi-paned windows. There are three intact chimeny pots visible from the rear. At one end of the gate-house is a gabled weatherboard addition. A few metres to the south west of this building are timber entrance posts and a section of picket fencing, denoting an entrance to the estate.
Winery Group:
There are two stone coursed rubble buildings with stone lintels, sills and quoins. They are located behind the homestead to the north west, on the hill slope. Wine was produced in one building and stored in the other.
Wine Store:
A long rectangular building with random rubble and stone quoins, lintels and sills. It has a gable roof, clad with corrugated iron. The roofing support are very long round posts which in the eastern wall rest on stone piers raised above the height of the wall. The western wall has a semi circular arch entrance with mortared stones and two windows on either side. The south end has a double entrance gate. There is a stone lined path running from this building up to the winery.
Winery:
Double gable, random rubble stone building with stone quoins, lintels and sills. The front has a double opening door and two six paned windows. The rear of the building is two storeys high, to compensate for the slope of the hill. It has three square windows placed just beneath the eaves. North of the building is a large tank or vat with the base surrounded by rubble stonework. A short stone path leads from this building down to the wine storage area.
Farm Outbuildings:
The farm outbuildings associated with the homestead at Maryland are located at the base of the hill to the east. The group includes a stone rubble stable, timber barn, a worker's cottage and more recent farm buildings.
Barn:
Rectangular timber structure with gable roof, clad with corrugated iron, as is the gable fill. The timber on the eastern side of the barn are wedge cut slabs while on the west there is board and battern construction. The lower edge of the slabs are supported by a sleeper. All internal walls that were inspected were of slab construction. The northern wall has double twin doors. The barn is located within a group of outbuildings and a worker's cottage which are at the base of the hill to the east of the homestead.
Stables:
A rectangular structure built from course random rubble with stone quoins, sills and lintels. This building has been through a number of stages to reach its present state. Initially it was rectangular and contained the existing intact timber hay racks, stalls and mangers. It has a corrugated iron gable roof and a hay loft. The façade has symmetrical openings and windows with multi paned glass. Additions were made to the northern and western sides of the building. On the west are living quarters containing a fireplace with an intact chimney. To the north is an animal pen with one side exposed and a grain storage area. The later was probably used originally as a carriage-house. The additions have made the stables block asymmetrical.
Worker's Cottage:
Iron hipped roof sandstone house with stone quoins and sills and a verandah. There are two brick chimneys. The verandah has timber posts. The stone has been painted white. There is a detached timber and brick structure behind the cottage with a hip end gable roof.
Lower Gate-house:
Very old stone gate-house with a weatherboard addition, close to The Northern Road. Stonework features carved mouldings over openings, but stone has deteriorated. Sheet metal roofing now over the whole building. Original stone chimney above. Good timber shed at the rear. Post and rail fence in front with excellent entry gates to the property, of characteristic local design. Solid capped timber posts with picket style fencing in splay form.
Setting and Landscape:
The homestead, set within a mass of olive and peppercorn trees and silhoutted old pines, appears as a focal point in the landscape seen from The Northern Road. The hilltop site is surrounded by grasslands with grazing dairy cattle and two lake-like dams of about 15 hectares each (built to present size in 1950 to 1960), now important landscape elements as well as for watering stock. A long circuitous entry drive in the English landscape tradition gives access to the house via a fine timber gateway (Edwardian) and inward splay fence with plumbago hedge, flanked by ornamental olives and stone pine. The red gravel (ironstone) drive extends past a Victorian gate-house with detailed garden to curve around the hilltop to the upper level. Here the colonial house with its long verandah comes into view, then a magestic outlook over the farm and countryside to the north is revealed between tall Hoop and Bunya Pines and Moreton Bay Fig. Little detailed planting remains around the courtyard of the house but the stone flagging and old well are notable. A modern swimming pool is sympathetically sited behind the house. Besides additional mature exotic trees around the property, significant stands of native trees are retained particularly along Lowes Creek and the northern paddocks. Two particularly old forest Red Gum and Grey Box remain within the farm complex, being over 1.2 metres in diameter and possibly 100 years old. James Broadbent Writes: "House, garden and landscape are inseparable, this more than any other quality distinguishes Maryland. There is a wonderful colonial garden surrounding the house, with plants typical of the period; olives, dark oaks, bunya pines, blue periwinkles, iris and oxalis. Maryland, like Kelvin, has been fortunate in having a stable history of careful mangement and good care. |