Avon Downs centenary of operations

The Australian Agricultural Company, known colloquially as AACo and often just AA, was established on 21 June 1824 in London. AACo is the oldest continuously operating company in Australia, and the story of their involvement in the Northern Territory is one that reaches interstate and overseas.

The British Parliament originally granted one million acres of the Colony of New South Wales to AACo with a charter to develop rural land. The primary objective at the time was to produce fine merino wool for export to England. Some of the land selected by the company surrounded the Peel River, at Goonoo Goonoo in the New England area of NSW.

Gold was discovered in 1852 in the Peel River district, and AACo created the Peel River Land & Mineral Company in anticipation of golden profits. Goonoo Goonoo had recently been granted freehold status, and was sold by AACo to Peel Company. Goonoo Goonoo’s location became the base for exploration and exploitation, and Peel Company made money issuing mining permits and providing stores from the homestead. Through the Peel River Land & Mineral Company, AACo expanded its land holdings across New South Wales and into Queensland, and started managing beef cattle as well as sheep.

Meanwhile, in the late 1860s, cousins John and James Rankin drove sheep from the Mackay area of Queensland into the Barkly to escape a drought, and took up residence there. The Barkly proved lucrative for a time, and the Rankins remained in the district long enough to have watercourses named for them – Ranken River being the most obvious (despite the different spelling), and also the James River. The Rankins eventually departed as a result of poor wool prices.

The British-born woolbroker and veteran pastoralist, Thomas Guthrie, had been eyeing off the region from Victoria and eventually purchased approximately 3,600 square kilometres of the Northern Territory’s Barkly region in 1882. One of the first to run such large numbers of sheep in the Territory, Guthrie named the property after his Victorian ‘Rich Avon’ merino stud, and the property ‘Avon Downs’ was born.

Guthrie has a place in the pages of history after organising drovers to walk 11,000 sheep to his newly acquired property. The trip is recorded as Australia’s longest ever droving journey with sheep. The grazing licences Guthrie used covered the same sections of country that form the backwards C shape of today’s Avon Downs, plus the Burramurra block to the south. Between those licences, Guthrie ran up to 70,000 merino sheep.

Avon Downs came to be well known beyond the Territory’s borders as a result of Guthrie’s phenomenal efforts in developing the property. On 25 October 1907 the NSW publication, the Peak Hill Express, stated:

“Avon Downs, the only sheep station in the Northern Territory, de-pastures 36,000 sheep and 7,000 cattle. The run measures 400 square miles, and is watered by 14 bores. When the railway comes along, this portion of the Territory will carry millions of sheep; cut up into 30,000 acre selections, it will be a grand country. The present rental is 1s 6d [1 shilling and 6 pence] per square mile.”

Peel Company bought the lease from Guthrie in 1921, and the exchange was described as “one of the most important sales of pastoral property for some time,” in the Northern Standard when the deal was completed, reportedly for around £250,000. Commentary in the press from later that year included recognition of the quality of Avon Downs produce, with the Brisbane Daily Standard stating on 10 September 1921:

“… Avon Downs scoured wool has often topped the market, and bullocks and milkers have often secured highest prices in Adelaide after the overland journey. The country is sound, thickly grassed with Flinders and Mitchell grasses, bluebush, and other fattening herbs, and the natural water supply from the Ranken and James rivers is augmented by unfailing sub-artesian bores.”

Through the subsequent re-acquisition of Peel Company by AACo in 1959, the property has now been held by AACo for 100 years. A visual reminder of the station’s 100 year history is still around today. The 3-letter brand, TAG, and the offside earmark first registered by Thomas Guthrie in November 1921 remain registered to Avon Downs. However, the original symbol brand of a capital Z was replaced by the AACo symbol brands of the axehead, AA over a crown, and the Austral Downs symbol of an A over an upside-down roof in the 1990s, when Austral Downs and Burramurra were acquired by AACo and brought under shared management with Avon Downs. The merino legacies remain, too, with the Guthrie paddock and the rivers named for the early pastoralists, and with Woolwash Waterhole (which changed to Washpool Waterhole) being the obvious tributes.

In 2005, the Northern Territory Government gave Avon Downs heritage listing, declaring the pastoral station to be “highly significant to the Territory” as one of the NT’s “earliest and most successful sheep stations”, and for its links to the pioneer explorers, pastoralists, and settlers of the Barkly Tablelands. The property's association with the James River and the Barkly Stock Route was highly significant for drovers overlanding cattle to southern markets.

Some of the original buildings at the station were also recognised as examples of progressive building techniques and styles dating from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. The well site and boiler at Bulls Creek, the Overshot Dam on the James River, the old Marshal steam engine and the dam construction scoop provide insight into the challenges faced by early pastoralists trying to develop their properties in the region’s more arid climate.

Avon Downs and its prominence in the Territory’s cattle industry, and the greater Australian livestock industry, can be clearly seen throughout its history, including in its assistance with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade’s research and development projects. The reduction of calf loss from exposure project in 2019 and 2020 tested whether providing shade could help reduce calf mortality and involved 150 purebred Wagyu heifers at the site. The results helped inform the next round of testing as part of the trial. Avon Downs also generously participated in research programmes including the NT Heifer Fertility Study and Cash Cow.

As part of AACo’s Barkly group of stations, Avon Downs is now used predominantly as a breeder block, with progeny turned off to the company’s eastern properties for finishing and slaughter. The station, and neighbouring Austral Downs, have run tens of thousands of cattle in recent years, with Santa-Angus cross and Barkly composite cows bred with Wagyu bulls to develop the F1 Wagyu, which produce quality marbling in their muscles, making them particularly popular with overseas beef markets.

Congratulations to AACo on celebrating 100 years of operations at Avon Downs.