[1][2] Jimbour House was an ambitious structure in terms of size, style and finish and was intended to support the social and political aspirations of Joshua Peter Bell, an important politician and businessman as well as grazier.

Other substantial stone homesteads of the era, such as Talgai, Glengallan and Westbrook, came nowhere near to rivalling Jimbour in either size or opulence.

[3][2] In 1844, explorer Ludwig Leichhardt stayed at Jimbour, at that time the most northerly station on the Downs, preparing for his trip to Port Essington.

[3][2] In about 1873 fashionable Brisbane architects Richard Suter and Annesley Wesley Voysey, in partnership from January 1872 to September 1874, were commissioned to design a new sandstone house, handsome and ambitious in scale and quality, as the main residence at Jimbour.

[5] In 1881, a shortage of working capital led the Bell brothers to merge their financial interests in Jimbour with those of Premier Thomas McIlwraith and JC Smyth, forming The Darling Downs and Western Land Company.

In October 1881, most of the Jimbour freehold was transferred to the company, but an area of 100 acres (40 ha) (sub 1 of pre-emptive portion 1), containing the house and most of the outbuildings, was retained by the Bell brothers as tenants in common.

[3] Joshua Peter Bell died suddenly in December 1881 and his family commissioned a memorial obelisk that was placed to the west of the main house, near the water tower and church.

In the early 1920s the house on its 100 acres (40 ha) was sold by order of the mortgagee, the Queensland National Bank, with title transferred in October 1922 to Charles Wippell.

At the time of Russell's purchase, Jimbour House was derelict, with several of the ceilings collapsed and only parts of the building habitable, and the gardens were a wilderness.

In the 1950s and 1960s the Russells developed agriculture (especially wheat) in conjunction with livestock at Jimbour, and new facilities were constructed such as stores, grain silos, feedlots and piggeries.

In the 1960s, the 1864 stone store was converted into two flats with the construction of a mezzanine level and the insertion of dormer windows, and a citrus orchard was planted to the east of the swimming pool.

After further divisions, subdivisions and purchases, the property of Jimbour now comprises 11,200 acres (4,500 ha) of Mountain Coolibahand and Basalt ridges.

The balance of over 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) is made up of natural and improved pastures for 700 breeding cattle and their progeny to turn off as bullocks and cull heifers.

[7] Today Jimbour combines the attractions of "Living History", from its heritage-listed architecture and gardens, to a busy tourism destination.

The sights and sounds of yesteryear are preserved alongside the activities of a working property producing fine beef, stud cattle and grain crops.

Both levels of the hall have a fireplace on one wall, reminiscent of the galleries in English country houses used as winter promenades.

Originally constructed as a store, evidence remains of the massive barred windows and catshead to the upper level.

The building has a gabled roof with close eaves, clad in corrugated iron, into which dormer windows have been inserted.

(1868 residence, remodelled in the 1870s as a kitchen and staff quarters and in the 1920s as men's quarters) To the rear of the main house and separated from it by a garden area, is a single-storeyed, low-set bluestone building with sandstone quoins, rectangular in plan, which was formed from the lower storey of the 1868 main homestead residence.

The wall at the eastern end of the building is of weatherboards with bricks infilling between the quoins, following the removal of an adjoining wing.

The porch roof was for a period raised to accommodate a small film projection room above the door, illustrating the multi-functioned use of this building which for a time housed the Jimbour school.

The framing is of trimmed tree trunks and hand hewn timber, clad externally with weatherboards dating to the 1870s.

The ground floor has modern metal-framed sliding doors and windows and contains a visitors' centre and gift shop.

Metal railings surround the memorial, which comprises a painted masonry obelisk decorated very simply with a border of acanthus below the plinth on which the shaft rests.

Originally designed by notable Queensland architect Benjamin Backhouse and constructed as a store, evidence remains of the massive barred windows and catshead to the upper level.

The building has a gabled roof with close eaves, clad in corrugated iron, into which dormer windows have been inserted.

In addition Queensland Arts Council stages concerts for small gatherings at Jimbour which are held three times a year.