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Blackall Woolscour: A steam driven wool scouring plant
A few kilometres out of town along the Jericho Road is the Woolscour. This steam driven, wool washing plant operated from 1908
to 1978. It is the only one of its kind in Australia with original machinery in place. This feature alone was unusual with a
twenty stand shearing shed and yards to hold 40,000 sheep were added. As the huge sheep stations were sub-divided, new settlers
did not have facilities so sheep could be shorn at the site of the scouring plant. Shearers quarters ablution block and kitchenare on site.
The original stream plants were powered by burning Gidgee wood and a large pile of white ash remains.
A bore of 780 metres delivering almost three million litres per day operated at Woolscour from 1908. A reliable source of quality
water was required to run steam driven scouring plant and the hot soft water from this bore was ideal. The bore has now been
regulated, allowing a small flow for demonstration purposes at the Woolscour and a water flow through pipes to five adjacent stations.
The original Woolscour was set up by a consortium of four local graziers and one businessman from Blackall.
The Blackall Woolscour operated from 1908 until 1978. With two million dollars in funding from the Queensland Heritage Trails
Network, the dilapidated Blackall Woolscour was reopened in 2002 for demonstration purposes. The plant is operated on steam
from 1st of May to the end of August. It is the only steam-driven scour incorporating a shearing shed left in Australia.
Outside of those times, electricity is used to demonstrate the processes. We missed seeing the steam powered plants run by a
few days.
An old truck once used to cart the wool still runs.
Each line has four baths. The first has bi-carb soda, the second soap to remove the lanolin then there are two rinses before
going into the dryers heated by pipes of steam and fanned by blowers. The resulting clean and dry wool was channeled into an
upstairs room from where it is dropped into bales and pressed. Pairs of bales were then ‘dumped’ (two bales pressed into the
size of one and strapped together) ready for export.
The second line which was added at a later date has a more efficientloading and progression system, whereas the first has to be manually loaded with the raw wool as presented in the bales from the farmer’s
bales.
The Woolscour is open seven days a week for guided tours. Tours are on the hour, every hour between nine am and
four pm.
This drum was used to shear the skins taken off dead sheep.