Page 66 - Tropic Magazine Issue 37

TROPIC • CAIRNS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Herberton once
had 20 hotels and
17 pubs.

Spirited past for many years, and Mr McColl remained “The lounge bar is being turned into a

in Herberton until his death. bit of a lady’s tourist business bar. In the
REGIONAL HISTORY
According to an article in The dining room, the silky oak windows are
The tales of yesteryear are being Queenslander, it’s thought to be the still there and we are bringing back that
brought to life as the Royal oldest pub on the Tablelands as well as nice red colour. We’re also doing slow
Hotel in Herberton undergoes a one of Queensland’s oldest continually- cooked barbeque items like briskets, live
music and we support the local Wild
licenced hotels. It was only two decades
renaissance. prior to its opening that Queensland River Mountain gin distillery and Billycart
broke away from New South Wales and Brewing.” The Royal Hotel trades seven
Words: Annabel Bowles
became its own colony, thus beginning to days a week, 11am till late.
In the same year Ned Kelly was hanged issue its own liquor licenses.
and Australia opened its first telephone “As well as the building itself, the whole
exchange, a small pub opened on the area attracted me,” Publican Rick
Tablelands to service a new mining town. Sherriff said. “Herberton is prospering
142 years later the Royal Hotel in and the people here cherish their history
Herberton remains open, slinging but also embrace change. The place is
schooners and welcoming locals and full of creative characters and amazing
visitors alike, though it’s recently changed historical figures. I did hear about a
hands. Experienced, long-time local policeman who was called either the
hospitality guru Rick Sheriff reopened Irishman or the Scotsman and you had
the venue this year with a mission to the option of either facing the fine or
showcase the hotel’s spirited past. fighting him. If he beat you, you got the
The Royal Hotel was established on fine but if you beat him, you were off
Herberton’s Grace Street in 1880 by well- the hook.”
known proprietor George Parker Hides, Rick is now setting about transforming
an Englishman who followed the gold the establishment to highlight its
rushes to Victoria, New South Wales and historical attributes.
New Zealand, and later to the Palmer
Goldfield in North Queensland at the
height of the rush in 1873.
He operated as a teamster, miner and On a Friday night,
storekeeper in partnership with Duncan
McColl, before building a hotel to we’re three or four
service miners in Hodgkinson and later, people deep
Herberton’s Royal Hotel. Originally a
small timber building, it was the first of Rick Sherriff,
20-odd hotels in the area at the Publican
peak of the tin mining boom. A second In partnership with the
story was added to the Royal in 1912. “The bar was renovated back in the Cairns Historical Society
Shortly after its inception, Mr Hides and 60s and early 70s so it’s now being
Mr McColl also opened the now Heritage- reconfigured to suit more of its proper MORE: cairnsmuseum.org.au
listed Hides Hotel. They kept The Royal age in the 1800s,” he said.

66 • Tropic • Issue 37