Documents and notices pertaining to Mackenzie's bankruptcy, declared in April 1844, indicate that he held an interest in and 400 head of cattle running on Ballandean under the charge of Mr HH Nicol.

Mackenzie later recovered his financial position and became a prominent Queensland politician, but his association with Ballandean appears to have concluded in 1844.

Reputedly, when the creek silted up and formed a swamp, Nicol constructed a four-roomed slab cottage with a stone fireplace and a shingle roof closer to the site of the later head station.

An early traveller on the Darling Downs, writing in 1926 of a c. 1857 journey through the Granite Belt, recalled that Nicol had not yet built the rendered brick house and that he still resided in a slab building.

It appears that Nicol continued to manage the property for Watt, and likely still held an interest in it, voting in the district until 1868 under his licence to depasture stock at Ballandean.

[1] Donald Gunn, whose father owned nearby Pikedale station, visited the homestead c. 1868 as a child and later recalled it as one of the best houses in the district.

[1] During Robertson's occupation the colonial government commenced a process of large-scale resumption of lease-hold pastoral land for closer agricultural selection.

After his death in 1883 Robertson's executors consolidated Ballandean run concurrently with further government resumptions of the lease in March 1886.

In 1889 they transferred the homestead and leasehold rights to James Fletcher, who erected a dingo proof fence on the property and cleared much of the run.

The property was noted for its high quality wool, a reputation based largely on the fact that it was free of many of the pests common elsewhere in pastures.

The author described the main residence as having been constructed in the mid-19th century, but the offices, stores, stables and yards were of more recent date.

The former head station is in a contained area in the north-east of the property, within a kilometre of Washpool Creek, a tributary of the Severn River.

[1] The residence is a single-storeyed, rendered (stuccoed) brick building with a central rectangular core surrounded by wide verandahs.

[1] An open verandah extends the length of the southern (front) elevation and is supported by tapering timber posts that are stop chamfered.

[1] On the northern elevation the verandah is enclosed and a small, central, gable-roofed portico (a later addition) shelters the main entry doors.

The double entry doors are low-waisted with glass fitted between fine mullions in the upper sections and a three-centred fixed fanlight above the transom.

The central room is the larger, with two pairs of French doors in the southern elevation and another opening into an entrance vestibule on the enclosed northern verandah.

In their southern and side external walls there are large timber-framed, multi-paned windows (some casements and some fixed) with low sills.

[1] Ceilings throughout the house are lined with wide timber boards, with those in the enclosed verandah rooms following the slope of the roof and those in the core being coved.

[1] The detached kitchen is situated approximately 10 metres (33 ft) to the north-west of the house, connected to it by a concrete path.

It is a timber-framed building elevated on low timber stumps and has a hipped roof, the ridgeline of which runs almost perpendicular to that of the main house.

In the rear masonry wall of the main room (the former kitchen) are a bread oven, a central cooking alcove with an early range and metal flue, and a brick fireplace with a gently curved head.

It has a pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron sheets and walls constructed of horizontal painted timber slabs.

[1] The killing shed is located almost 35 metres (115 ft) directly north of the detached kitchen, within an arrangement of operational outbuildings and yards.

Two timber- framed meat storage cupboards, lined with wire mesh, sit against the interior of the eastern elevation.

This structure also has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting and is constructed of vertical, unpainted timber slabs.

This building overlooks the remains of a forge, which comprise an upright piece of rusting iron and some loose timber framing.

Ballandean Homestead, erected c. 1870, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the pattern and nature of squatter occupation of the New England and Darling Downs districts preceding agriculture and the establishment of towns.

The homestead is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early and evolving head stations on Queensland pastoral properties.

The homestead complex has aesthetic importance as a picturesque and rustic place set in a rural environment, which quality has been valued by visitors over many decades.