Cotswold Cottage, Maroon
Cotswold Cottage, Maroon
Cotswold Cottage is the ruins of a historic homestead at 186 Cotswold Road, Maroon, in the Scenic Rim Region of Queensland, Australia. It was built between 1888 and the 1890s by Frederick William Cook, an English immigrant who worked as a carpenter and builder.
Cook moved his wife Elizabeth and their three children from Brisbane to Maroon in 1888 and began building the stone-and-slab cottage, named after his home district in England. The walls used locally sourced iron bark slabs and stone, bound with a mortar mix of clay and cow manure. The roof was made from hand-cut timber shingles, and three fireplaces were built into the stone walls. The house was constructed in stages over several years, starting with the southern end.
The dwelling was originally a six-room house. Accounts from Cook’s family describe a two-bedroom, dining room, kitchen, sitting room, and a workshop. Interiors were whitewashed, with decorative finishes, and the wooden floors included a painted pattern in the dining room. One unusual feature was windows made from small lantern-slide glass plates set into frames.
During the late 19th century, Cook also worked as a builder in the district, contributing to local buildings such as a provisional school. The property was formally granted to Cook in 1899. It was transferred to his son Edgar in 1922. After Cook’s death in 1937, the cottage fell into disrepair, and in 1954 the title passed to James Weatherall. The building eventually became a ruin.
Today, only part of the southern wall and sections of the other walls remain. The ruins sit on an elevated paddock near Cotswold Road, with scattered stones around the site. Nearby trees, including Crow’s Ash, are part of the landscape, and Mount Maroon forms a dramatic backdrop to the ruins.
Cotswold Cottage was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. It is important for showing how small immigrant settlers built homes in rural Queensland using local materials and traditional techniques. The remnants, along with family memories and historical records, help us understand how people lived and worked in this region at the time.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:41 (CET).