HomeHistoryHistory of Knockroe Sugar Mill

History of Knockroe Sugar Mill

Knockroe sugar mill
The site of the Knockroe Sugar Mill. The existing shed is not part of the heritage remains.

Knockroe Sugar Mill was erected by Alexander Christie Walker in 1893, the third mill to be established in the Isis district in the late 19th century, after Doolbi Juice Mill and Horton Mill.

Alexander Christie Walker was the son of Alexander Walker, who established the Bingera cattle station in the 1860s on what later became the site of the Bingera Sugar Mill.

On his property ‘Knockroe’, Alexander initially planned on planting sugar cane, based on the belief that a mill was to be erected on the neighbouring ‘Hapsburg’ property.

In January 1893, the property was described in The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser as two square miles with 1,000 acres of recently cleared scrub for cane, with a further 400 acres already under cane.

When the proposed mill did not eventuate, Alexander convinced a group of prominent Bundaberg entrepreneurs to invest in the erection of a mill on his property, gaining support from Frederic Buss and his business partners, Tom Penny and WH Williams.

Knockroe Mill opened in 1893, and is listed on Bundaberg Regional Council’s Register of Local Heritage Places

The mill was enlarged with the addition of the Kircubbin Mill which was moved to the Knockroe site from Tinana Creek in 1894, doubling the crushing capacity of the mill, along with further improvements in time for the 1895 crushing season.

The extension of a railway branch from Childers to Cordalba, opened in 1896, was largely prompted by the establishment of the Knockroe Mill.

Its presence almost stymied the establishment of the Isis Central Sugar Mill, as the proposed site for the Central Mill was relatively close to the Knockroe Mill.

However, the Central Mill went ahead and, along with the CSR Mill at Huxley, competition in the district increased dramatically.

Economies of scale became vitally important for mills to survive, necessitating fewer mills with more crushing power.

Closure of Knockroe Mill

Knockroe Mill sold to CSR Company in 1901 and was quickly dismantled as the company only wanted the cane land that came with the purchase.

The mill’s investors concentrated their attention on the Bundaberg sugar market, leaving the Isis to CSR and the Isis Central Mill.

Knockroe Mill site
Remains of a brick structure on the site. Photo: Bundaberg Regional Council local heritage place register.

Alexander Christie Walker continued to be a prominent cane grower in the district.

Knockroe remained a cane farm, supplying the remaining mills, and CSR purchased the remaining portion of Knockroe land in 1924.

CSR closed its Huxley Mill in 1932, leaving the Central Mill as the only sugar mill in the Isis.  

Site’s heritage features

The Knockroe Sugar Mill site is located immediately north of Knockroe Road and is bounded by macadamias to the north, cane to the east and a cane tramway stabling area to the west.

Visible physical remains of the mill include the formed concrete and rendered brick housing footings and sumps of former crushing and milling plant.

Knockroe Mill site
Remains of rendered brick vats. Photo: Bundaberg Regional Council local heritage place register.

An arched brick entrance to a tunnel, possibly for ventilation, several brick vats and collapsed brick walls, concrete footings and metal pipes also remain.

There have been numerous artefacts found across the site, including metal chains, bolts and brackets, glass and stoneware bottle fragments and an ink bottle.

It is considered that there is high potential of further archaeological material to be present at the site, particularly concealed subsurface or under thick ground cover.

The Knockroe Sugar Mill site is important in demonstrating the evolution of the region’s history.

It was, briefly, the most successful of the independent sugar mills in the Childers district until its closure and sale to CSR.

Its demise reflected the intense competition in the Childers sugar industry in the 1890s and early 1900s.

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