[1] Rockton is a substantial brick house, the first section of which was built as a cottage for bank manager William Craies and his wife Sabina in 1855.

The cottage was progressively extended and altered by successive owners over a long period, producing a complex but surprisingly harmonious house with great character.

The Bullmores had several daughters who attended the nearby Ipswich Girls' Grammar School after it was established in 1892 and the house was extended for family accommodation and entertaining.

A breezeway between two wings was enclosed to form a ballroom and an upper storey was added to the northern end with a "widow's walk" on top.

[1] In 1945, a separate residential area was created on the northern side for Haenke's son Willis and his wife Helen who inherited the property when Will died in 1953.

Willis continued the family interest in coalmining and Helen was a writer who published several books of poetry and wrote several plays which were performed in Brisbane and Ipswich.

[1] Rockton is a large Victorian-era mansion which shows evidence of its staged construction and alterations over a long period of time.

[1] The earliest wing is a simple lowset single-storey facebrick structure with a hipped roof and generally open verandahs on two sides.

[1] The original wing was extended with a more substantial single-storey structure distinguished by the break in the roof between the main hipped form and the separate skillion over the verandahs on two sides.

Verandah posts on these first two wings consist of rectangular profile timber supports with simple column capitals.

It has open verandahs on the north-western side with lower verandahs now enclosed in casement windows and weatherboard cladding, The upper construction and detailing of this two-storey wing includes polychromatic brickwork, timber floors, shuttered windows and doors and a steeply-hipped roof surmounted by a widows' walk with cast iron lace balustrading.

Rockton is a rare example of a house whose construction commenced in the 1850s; the 1855 wing appears to be the oldest surviving building in Ipswich.

[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.