The Wellshot Centre

The Wellshot Centre is dedicated to telling the story of one of Australia’s largest sheep stations. View a 20 minute film “A Rush for Grass” which graphically displays the challenges faced by early pioneers and their fortitude in adapting to a harsh and fickle climate.

The building is also the local Visitor Information Centre. The Wellshot Centre contains detailed information about local attractions as well as souvenirs.

Why Visit?

The Wellshot Centre has a great display of items, images, maps and books about Wellshot Station,

What's so special about Wellshot Station?

Looking at the tiny settlement of Ilfracombe, with its one hotel and rather isolated Folk Museum, it is hard to imagine that, in the 1890s, the town had three hotels each with its own dance hall, a soft drink maker, a coach builder, two general stores, a billiard saloon, a dressmaker, three commission agents, a couple of butchers, a baker and a saddler. The story of western Queensland is contained in these changes. Once transportation became efficient the number of people living in the outback declined. What took a month in the 1890s can now take only a few hours.

It has its claim to fame due to having the largest mob of sheep ever moved as a single flock. In 1886 43 000 sheep were moved through the area by a droving team of 27 horsemen - and that doesn't include the cooks, blacksmiths and hands which would have been needed to accompany the drovers. The era of the large wagon hauls was ended by the arrival of the railway in 1891, making Ilfracombe a railhead for the transportation of regional livestock to urban markets.

Today there are just 350 people living in a shire which covers an area of 6500 sq. km. The old stations where anything up to 100 people were employed are now a thing of the past. Back in1892 Wellshot Station (60 km south of town) was the largest sheep station in the world, in terms of the number of sheep it ran: 460 000. Indeed, so predominant was it that Ilfracombe was, until 1890, known as Wellshot.