[1] The firm of James Campbell and Sons was one of Brisbane's earliest and longest established suppliers of building materials, which in the second half of the 19th century specialised in the retailing of lime, cement, plaster, paints and timber, and operated saw and planing mills, plantations, lime works and pottery kilns in a number of locations in southeast Queensland, as well as Campbell's wharf and warehouse at Creek Street, Brisbane, and a substantial fleet of freight vessels.

Finding little employment in Brisbane for a plasterer, James opened a small store in George Street, retailing building materials obtained from Sydney.

From the early 1860s, Campbell is understood to have operated lime kilns at Breakfast Creek and Lytton, supplied with shell and coral collected from Moreton Bay by sub-contractors.

In the mid-1870s part of this land, Eastern Suburban Allotments 14 and 15 (by then owned by Frederick Hamilton Hart and William Henry Barker) were subdivided as the Langshaw Estate - marketed as prime residential real estate with frontages to the Brisbane River, Bowen Terrace and the New Farm Road (Brunswick Street), suitable for gentlemen's villa residences.

In February 1877 Campbell wrote to the Brisbane Municipal Council, requesting permission to erect a lime kiln at Bowen Terrace, on the Langshaw Estate, and a year later raised a mortgage of £1,500 on the property from James Gibbon.

[1] In addition to the kilns, Campbell built a small wharf at the New Farm site, to which his ships transported limestone, and later timber, following the establishment of the Langshaw Planing Mills and Joinery Works on the property in 1882.

JD Campbell, (who from 1896 was chairman and managing director of James Campbell and Sons Ltd), supervised the Langshaw planing mills and lime works, and from at least 1883 he and his young family resided at Rocky Bank, overlooking the Brisbane River at New Farm, adjoining the mill and lime works on part of the land acquired by his father in the 1870s.

[1] By the late 1880s, James Campbell and Sons had developed an extensive building supplies business which embraced timber, lime, brick, stone, asphalt, and hardware.

In June 1894 title passed to the Queensland National Bank, and three years later to Thomas William Hanmer, who held the interest in a £7,000 mortgage on the property taken out by James Campbell in 1886.

[1] A search of the Brisbane Post Office Directories indicates that following James Campbell and Sons' removal c. 1894, the site of the former Langshaw mills and lime works remained unoccupied for about 20 years.

A disastrous fire in February 1931 destroyed the mill, and in 1933 Rosenfeld subdivided the land into residential allotments around a short cul-de-sac, Julius Street, which was dedicated by the Brisbane City Council in 1934.

The site contains the remains of two lime kilns built into the steep embankment, with a level area extending to the river bank and remnants of a timber wharf adjacent.

[1] The porphyry kiln has squared rubble coursing, with an arched hearth with three layers of bricks forming the extrados, and is currently used as an outdoor fireplace.

The lime kiln remains are significant for their association with the work of the important early Queensland firm of James Campbell and Sons, whose building supplies business, established in 1854, survived into the late 20th century.