The Ploughed Station (Convict)

In 1903, Red Gum in one of his articles titled 'Glimpses of Ipswich' wrote about Ipswich that sixty-years ago asking What was Ipswich then like? This would have been 1843. He wrote:

The abode of some 100 men employed here in various occupations was at the "Ploughed Station," a small settlement situated on what was known as the old Ipswich (subsequently The Grange) racecourse.

The Ploughed Station, later known as the Old Racecourse (bounded by Robertson Road, Raceview Street, Cascade Street and Wildey Street, Raceview).

In 1911, H. S. Russel's writings on Early Settlement featured in the Darling Downs Gazette. He wrote of travelling with Walter Leslie and recalled reaching Limestone and what he saw when George Thorne (Thorn) took him to see the Plough Station.

What Government sheep we saw were leggy, coarse-woolled brutes, a cross, I believe, of merino and Teeswarter. But at the Plough Station there was a cheerful view of many acres of fine maize. The wheat, however, had totally failed here. D.A.G.G. Kent would persist - since he had the ordering of such matters - in forbidding the usual, and hitherto successful process of ploughing in the grain when sown, and was contented with the harrow over it. Consequently the sun gave it no chance being so thinly protected. The heat would turn the uppermost soil into light dust, and the grain would not settle. A short continuance of dry weather, in such case, parched it up.