The Royal Bull's Head Inn is a heritage-listed hotel at Brisbane Street, Drayton, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia.

[2] The Royal Bull's Head Inn, a two-storey timber and brick building, was constructed in 1859 as a major extension to William Horton's well-known 1847 hotel at Drayton.

[1][3] In the early 1840s, squatters first began to take up pastoral runs on the Darling Downs, thus initiating European settlement of the area.

In 1842, Thomas Alford set up a store near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes which led through Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps in the Great Dividing Range.

In 1844 Alford gained a license to sell liquor and a cluster of buildings belonging to artisans and other businesses developed at "The Springs" to serve the needs of pastoralists, bullock drivers and travellers.

[4][5] Horton (sometimes referred to as Orton), was an ex-convict who had come to the Darling Downs to work for Henry Stuart Russell of Cecil Plains, by whom he was highly regarded.

Benjamin Glennie conducted his first Church of England service on the Darling Downs, at the Royal Bull's Head Inn.

[4][9][10] In 1848, Drayton was surveyed to allow builders to secure title to their property and Horton purchased lots 8 to 11 of Section 1, on which his inn was built, at the first land sale in 1850.

Drayton continued to thrive as a service town, but faced persistent problems with its water supply which could not reliably keep pace with the number of people and animals who were using it.

It was also closer to the new Toll Bar road over the Great Dividing Range which had a gradient better suited to dray traffic.

He moved back to Drayton in 1858 and expanded the Bull's Head by a major extension made out of brick, cedar and timber, constructed along Brisbane Street adjoining the original inn building.

The new work was completed for the visit of Sir George Ferguson Bowen, the new Queensland Governor, in March 1860 when he stayed at the inn following Drayton's public banquet there.

Improvements to the inn, now called the Royal Bull's Head Hotel, continued with an installation of a billiard room with a first class Thurston table and new stables in 1861.

[6] After extensive restoration and reconstruction it was opened to the public as a place museum based on its original usage as a wayside inn.

Information gained from such surveys, including the cataloguing of quantities of bone fragments from food animals, are expected to expand understanding of the operation of such inn complexes from the early European settlement period.

On 2 May 1988 the governor of Queensland, Sir Walter Campbell Q.C officially opened the Royal Bull's Head Inn.

[1] The early kitchen remains in a ruinous condition at the south west corner of the main inn building.

[1] Much of the original area of the grounds survives and contains garden and agricultural structures added by the Lynches and some early plantings.

[1] Royal Bull's Head Inn was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.