Industrial Ruins
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Industrial Ruins, south end of Macleay Island, 1997
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| Location | Cliff Terrace, Macleay Island, City of Redland, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 27°37′56″S 153°21′43″E / 27.6321°S 153.362°ECoordinates: 27°37′56″S 153°21′43″E / 27.6321°S 153.362°E |
| Design period | 1840s - 1860s (mid-19th century) |
| Built | c. 1869 - c. 1871 |
| Official name: Industrial Ruins, south end of Macleay Island | |
| Type | state heritage (archaeological) |
| Designated | 6 April 1998 |
| Reference no. | 601062 |
| Significant period | 1869-1871 (fabric, historical) |
| Significant components | flue - underground, wall/s - retaining, slipway, fire box, machinery/plant/equipment - manufacturing/processing, road/roadway |
 Location of Industrial ruins in Queensland
Industrial Ruins, Macleay Island (Australia)
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The Industrial ruins are a heritage-listed archaeological site at Cliff Terrace, Macleay Island, City of Redland, Queensland, Australia. It was built from c. 1869 to c. 1871. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 6 April 1998.
The Industrial Ruins appear to be associated with the 1869 establishment of a sugar mill, possibly in conjunction with a salt works, on the island. Although no early description of the mill and salt works has been found, documentary evidence reveals that a sugar mill was erected on the island in 1869, that both a sugar mill and a salt works were extant on the southern half of Macleay Island in 1871, but that possibly neither were operating by 1874. The surviving Cornish boiler in its stone fire-box is likely to date to the 1860s-1870s, Cornish boilers generally being superseded in Queensland by the 1880s. This re-inforces the hypothesis that the ruins are associated with sugar manufacture/salt production on the island in the late 1860s/early 1870s.
At this period, sugar cultivation and manufacture in Queensland was still experimental. In the late 1860s the principal sugar-growing area extended from Tingalpa and Cleveland south to the Redland Bay, Logan and Albert districts. The red clay soil on Macleay and Russell Islands in southern Moreton Bay was similar to that at Redland Bay, and the islands had the additional advantage of being free from frosts. On the mainland a number of small sugar crushing mills and distilleries were erected, employing an open pan system which produced a coarse, dark brown sugar. With the introduction in the mid-1870s of the more expensive vacuum pan system, which produced a finer white sugar, and increasing competition from the Mary and Burnett River districts, sugar cultivation and manufacture in the southern part of the colony declined. Some mills survived, but by the 1880s, farmers at Cleveland, Redland Bay and the Bay islands were growing mainly bananas, fruits and vegetables.
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