Chinese Temple and Settlement Site, Croydon克罗伊登华人庙宇与聚落遗址

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Queensland · Croydon · Beside the Gulf Developmental Road; a goldfield town in the Gulf region of North Queensland

Coordinates

-18.1983, 142.2472 Map ↗

First built

c. the 1880s · Listed on the Queensland Heritage Register (No. 602079) on 28 July 2000; no above-ground structure survives, only the foundations remain

Heritage status

Queensland Heritage Register #602079(2000)

Overview

The Croydon Chinese Temple, built around the 1880s, was the largest known early Chinese temple in Queensland; its main structure measured twenty-two meters by six meters, oriented on a northeast–southwest axis with its front entrance facing southwest, with a four-meter-square front section and a six-by-seven-meter rear section, verandahs and a concrete floor, and a sunken courtyard 2.5 meters square at the rear, likely a place for burning incense and making offerings; the floor beams rested on finely carved lotus-form column bases supporting the pillars of the "skywell" courtyard. At the height of the Croydon goldfield, the Chinese population numbered about three hundred, mostly engaged in market gardening and services, making it one of the largest Chinese settlements in the Australian outback at the time. The temple has long since collapsed, and today only the foundations, the caretaker's residence site, the remains of numerous dwellings, two locally built stone "roast-pig ovens," and a scattering of ceramic and corrugated-iron remains survive; it must be made clear that this is an archaeological site, not a standing temple. It was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register (No. 602079) on 28 July 2000.

Highlights

• The largest known early Chinese temple in Queensland (22 by 6 meters)
• A sunken incense-burning courtyard and lotus-form column bases
• Remains of two stone-built roast-pig ovens
• Now an archaeological site; no above-ground structure survives
• Queensland Heritage Register No. 602079