Q IS FOR QUAIRADING, QUINDALUP and QUINDANNING plus 2 more

There are only 3 towns in Western Australia beginning with the letter Q so I decided to include them all.   I have not been to Quairading (my daughter-in-law's mum and dad and two sisters and their families live there) or Quindanning but have passed through Quindalup on our way to Margaret River.

QUAIRADING is located in the wheatbelt region.  The town was name for Quairading Spring, derived from a local Aboriginal word recorded in 1872 by surveyor Alexander Forest.  The first European settler in the area is believed to have been Stephen Parker, who settled in nearby York.  From 1859 to 1863, his son Edward Parker cleared land east of York towards Dangin, before Edward's son Jonah took over Dangin and the surrounding area.  Jonah subdivided his property and made Dangin a private townsite, surrounded by his land.  A Methodist,  Jonah banned alcohol in the town and these factors led to residents leaving Dangin.  (Surprise! surprise!) The Government made available new land in nearby Quairading, and gave settlers a 160 acre (0.250 sq mile: 0.647 sq km) block for free if they cleared their land and lived there for 7 years.  Many settlers took up the offer and moved into the area between 1903 and 1908.

The Greenhills Road Board, established in 1892, decided to build a railway from Greenhills (near York) to Quairading and gazette the townsite at the Quairading terminus.  The townsite was gazetted on 7 August, 1907 and the railway completed in 1908.  By 1909, the town had an hotel, general store, blacksmith, baker, carpenter and two banks, and by 1950, most of the land was cleared and being used for farming.  In 1932 the Wheat Pool of Western Australia announced that the town would have two grain elevators, each fitted with an engine, installed at the railway siding.

The Quairading Hotel:

In the 2006 census Quairading had 596 residents with 18.1% indigenous residents, compared with 2.3% indigenous persons Australia-wide.  The median age of residents was 49 years compared to the national average of 37.  Quairading has an airstrip located 300 metres (984 ft) east of the town on the York to Merredin Road. The town also has a library and a number of small parks including a memorial rose garden and a public swimming pool.  The Great Sports Ground is home to football (Aussie Rules), hockey, cricket and netball.

Nookaminnie Rock, a large granite rock, provides a view of the town and surrounding areas, and the townsite can also be viewed from Mount Stirling, 35 km (22 miles) northeast of Quairading.  This is the church and cemetery at the foot of Mount Stirling:

The area was rocked by an earthquake in April, 2009; the epicentre was located approximately 20km northwest of the town.  The earthquake measured 3.2 on the Richter Scale and happened at 4.50am local time but caused no damage.  These are photos of Quairading courtesy of the W.A. Government; the last photo showing Noongar (aboriginal) art:

QUINDALUP is a small town in the South West region of Western Australia.  It is situated along Caves Road between Busselton and Dunsborough on Geographe Bay.  At the 2006 census, the town had a population of 1,015.

The area was the site of one of the earliest timber industries in the State.  Several timber mills were constructed in the area and the products were exported utilising a jetty that had been constructed on the coast in the 1860s.  The first recorded use of the name was on a timber mill owned by Yelverton and McGibbon.  Land was reserved by the government in the 1870s and in 1899 local fishermen petitioned for a town to be declared along the beach front.  Lots were surveyed the same year and the town was gazetted in 1899.  The name in local Aboriginal language means place of the Quenda (which is a small native animal indigenous to the area).

The town was located close to a shallow inlet, where the jetty was built, which was used to load timber sent up by a tramway, to boats that would ferry the timber to large boats anchored a few kilometres offshore.  This of course is where much of our forests disappeared to over the years.  They had no thoughts of conservation back in the early days, more's the pity.

The only parts of the original settlement that are 'slab cottage' group, known as Harwood's Cottage, which was constructed circa 1860 and associated with the original timber mill.  The cottage group is composed of a cottage, gaol, post office, telephone exchange and Customs House.  The buildings were mostly derelict until restorations planned in 1998, commenced in 2000 and the operation was opened for business in 2000 with accommodation opened in 2004.  (We have not been down that way some years now so will not have seen these restorations).  I found these pictures and the place looks rather special:

That last pic is a bit fuzzy but it's the best I could do.  A wee bit of history.

QUINDANNING is a small town located halfway between Boddington and Williams along the Pinjarra-Williams Road.  At the 2006 census Quindanning had a popularion of 163.  The town is named after Quindanning Pool, located along the Williams River.  The name is of Aboriginal origin, and was first recorded in 1835 when it was discovered by Alfred Hillman.  Low-level agricultural settlement occurred in the 1830s.  By 1900 a school and racecourse had been built and in 1907 a townsite was surveyed and gazetted around it.

Quindanning was one of the centres ministered by the Brotherhood of St Boniface, which was stationed in Williams from 1911 to 1929.  To honour their work, the Quindanning Anglican church was named after their patron when it was consecrated in 1956.  The church is constructed of stone carted from local properties by member of the church; the estimated cost of building at the time of its construction £4,600.00.

The Quindanning Hotel had origins in a mud-brick building, with a Wayside Licence issued on  3rd December, 1900.  The building was substantially renovated in 1921 to become a well-known "inland resort hotel' between 1925 and the late 1950s.  During the 1930s the hotel had a 9-hole golf course, horse riding, game hunting and swimming at Quindanning Pool.

At periods during the town's history, Quindanning has had a general store, post office, hairdresser and cafe.  Currently, the town has a hotel/tavern, church, community hall and a racecourse - the latter used annually for the Quindanning Picnic Race Day, held on Easter Sunday.

I am beginning to wish I'd visited this town as it sounds rather nice.  I have found pictures of the hotel and the lovely old church:

Hey!  Guess what?  Just when I thought the Q's were done and dusted I discovered TWO more W.A. towns beginning with "Q"; two I'd never heard of before.  I just had to include them:

QUALEUP is located in the great southern agricultural region, 291 km south-south-east of Perth and 35 km west of Kojonup.  It is located on the railway line from Boyup Broook to Kojonup, and was one of the original sidings when the line opened in 1912.  Land was set aside here in 1910 for a future townsite, and by 1921 there was enough interest in the area for the government to consider a scheme of subdivision.  Lots were surveyed in 1924, and the townsite of Qualeup gazetted in October 1924.  The name is derived from the nearby Lake Qualeup (an Aboriginal name) a lake first recorded by a surveyor in 1907.  On earlier plans the name was spelt Qualeupp.

QUIGUP townsite is located din the southwest forest region 289 km south of Perth and 7km wnw of Nannup.  Lots at Quigup were surgeyed in 1909, to provide for employees of Bartman & Son's new sawmill in the area, and it was proposed to name the town St John Brook after a nearby stream.  As this name had been used elsewhere in Australia it was not suitable, and the Greenbushes Road Board proposed the name Quigupp as an alternative.  The townsite was gazetted as Quigup in January, 1911. It is an Aboriginal name, the meaning of which is not known.

Remember that the usual meaning of towns in southwest Western Australia that end with 'up' mean place of water. The suffix originated in a dialect of Noongar, an Indigenous Australian language in which 'up' means 'place of'.  Places tended to be named after their distinctive features, whereby the place names could be used to create a 'mental map' allowing indigenous Australians to determine where water, food and other raw materials could be found.  These sites were often located near sources of fresh water, leading to the common misconception that 'up' and 'in' mean 'near water'.  The meanings and the pronunciations of many of these names have been lost over time.

My thanks to Wikipedia for the information about the first 3 towns and to persons unknown for some of the photographs.  I found the information about the last 2 towns on the Landgate.wa.gov website.