Qualla: Royal Bull's Head Inn https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Royal Bull's Head Inn https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn Royal Bull's Head Inn: Introduction https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn/ Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. The man who built this inn arrived in Australia at sixteen, a convict transported from England for theft. By the time William Horton raised the timber-and-brick building that still stands on Brisbane Street in Drayton, he had become something else entirely: the most celebrated host on the Darling Downs. He named his hotel the Bull's Head, after a prize Durham bull called Champion that grazed the plains at Cecil Plains station. Then a governor came to stay, and the place got a crown in front of its name.

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/r7h4-royal-bulls-head-inn-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Royal Bull's Head Inn: Water Springs Up https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn/ Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. Before there was a town, there was a spring. The Aboriginal name for this place was chinkerry, meaning water springs up, and the people who named it had drawn on it for thousands of years. When squatters pushed onto the Darling Downs in the early 1840s, they camped where the wate...

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/r7h4-royal-bulls-head-inn-water-springs-up.mp3 0:06 2 full Royal Bull's Head Inn: A Crown and a Congregation https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn/ Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. Horton was a genial host, and his inn became the social engine of the district. Squatters met here to talk politics and arrange horse races. Auctions were held in its rooms. Lodging, stabling, gossip, governance: all of it ran through the Bull's Head. On 20 August 1848, the Rever...

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/r7h4-royal-bulls-head-inn-a-crown-and-a-congregation.mp3 0:06 3 full Royal Bull's Head Inn: The Town That Drifted Away https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn/ Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. Drayton had a problem it could never solve: water. The springs that gave the place its name could not keep pace with the people and animals crowding in. Wells were sunk and failed. The town sat in a gully, hemmed in, unable to grow. Meanwhile, an area called The Swamp, about six ...

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/r7h4-royal-bulls-head-inn-the-town-that-drifted-away.mp3 0:06 4 full Royal Bull's Head Inn: What the Walls Remember https://qualla.com/royal-bull-s-head-inn/ Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. The Lynch family lived here for generations, and the inn absorbed their lives. When the last surviving son died in 1973, the National Trust of Queensland acquired the building and, after careful restoration, opened it to the public in 1985. Walk through it now and the layers are ...

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/7/h/4/royal-bull-s-head-inn-wp/r7h4-royal-bulls-head-inn-what-the-walls-remember.mp3 0:06 5 full