page_title: Royal Bull's Head Inn
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Bull's Head Inn / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Royal Bull's Head Inn, Drayton, south of Toowoomba. The original inn was built in 1848 and was replaced by the existing building in 1858. The first proprietor was William Horton and it was the location of the first Anglican service on the Darling Downs, conducted by Reverend Benjamin Glennie in 1848.
context_page_description: The Royal Bull's Head Inn is a heritage-listed hotel at Brisbane Street, Drayton, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1859 to 1950s. It is also known as Bull's Head Hotel. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. It is currently managed as a trust property by the National Trust of Queensland.
context_section_description: The Royal Bull's Head Inn, a two-storey timber and brick building, was constructed in 1859 as a major extension to William Horton's well-known 1847 hotel at Drayton.
  In the early 1840s, squatters first began to take up pastoral runs on the Darling Downs, thus initiating European settlement of the area. In 1842, Thomas Alford set up a store near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes which led through Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps in the Great Dividing Range. The place was known to the Aborigines as chinkerry (water springs up) and to Europeans as "The Springs". In 1844 Alford gained a license to sell liquor and a cluster of buildings belonging to artisans and other businesses developed at "The Springs" to serve the needs of pastoralists, bullock drivers and travellers.
  In 1847, an inn of superior quality was built by William Horton at what was by then called "Drayton". Horton (sometimes referred to as Orton), was an ex-convict who had come to the Darling Downs to work for Henry Stuart Russell of Cecil Plains, by whom he was highly regarded. Horton had run a hotel for George Thorn at Ipswich in the early 1840s and, with this experience, set out to make his new hotel a by-word for comfort and service on the Downs. He called it the 'Bull's Head' after "Champion" a prize Durham bull on Cecil Plains station. The hotel soon became an important meeting place for squatters and also had a thriving bar trade. It offered lodging, a staging place for animals and was used for auctions, meetings and other social functions. The inn was large and well equipped with a parlour and all the requirements for a constant stream of visitors, including travellers, clergymen, settlers and anyone travelling to the area from the coast. Meetings held at the hotel ranged from state governance to horse races.
  On 20 August 1848 the Rev. Benjamin Glennie conducted his first Church of England service on the Darling Downs, at the Royal Bull's Head Inn.
  In 1848, Drayton was surveyed to allow builders to secure title to their property and Horton purchased lots 8 to 11 of Section 1, on which his inn was built, at the first land sale in 1850. Drayton continued to thrive as a service town, but faced persistent problems with its water supply which could not reliably keep pace with the number of people and animals who were using it. Wells were sunk, but did not cure the problem. Drayton's situation in a gully also made expansion something of a problem. In 1851 Horton purchased lots 15 and 16 on the hill behind his hotel, as a paddock, which were marked on the survey as unsuitable for building. At the same time, the area known as "The Swamp", 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) away, which had been intended as suburban lots for Drayton, was developing quickly.
  The Swamp had a more reliable water supply than Drayton and soil well suited to farming. It was also closer to the new Toll Bar road over the Great Dividing Range which had a gradient better suited to dray traffic. By 1852 Horton was already arranging to build another hotel at "The Swamp" and by 1855 was offering the Bull's Head Hotel for sale with a three-year lease in place. A rivalry between the two settlements had developed which would eventually result in Drayton's eclipse by Toowoomba, as "The Swamp" was later named.
  In 1856 Horton sold his still unlicensed "Seperation [sic] Hotel" at Toowoomba to Russell and James Taylor. He moved back to Drayton in 1858 and expanded the Bull's Head by a major extension made out of brick, cedar and timber, constructed along Brisbane Street adjoining the original inn building. The entire inn was beautifully furnished and was regarded as the best on the Darling Downs, and better than some in Brisbane and Ipswich. The new work was completed for the visit of Sir George Ferguson Bowen, the new Queensland Governor, in March 1860 when he stayed at the inn following Drayton's public banquet there.
  
  Improvements to the inn, now called the Royal Bull's Head Hotel, continued with an installation of a billiard room with a first class Thurston 
caption: Royal Bull's Head Inn, 1880s
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