In addition to his successes in Charters Towers and Ravenswood, he also had interests in the Hodgkinson and Palmer fields and in copper, tin and wolfram production in other northern mining areas.

Charters Towers was a field of astonishing richness and at its peak accounted for more than a third of Queensland's entire gold production as new technologies requiring corporate capital took over from the hand methods of individual miners and small syndicates.

[1] In the year before construction on Thornburgh began, Plant and his family spent 12 months visiting England; a practice not uncommon for wealthy Australians who wished to collect ideas and furnishings for a projected residence.

The two storeyed home, located on Plant's Ridge, was not only large, handsome and tastefully decorated, but incorporated some innovative ideas.

[1] The basement to the house contained, besides storage space, wine cellar and larder, a children's playroom with a concreted area for them to use as a skating rink.

Plant also employed a large grounds staff and by 1919 when the house was sold, the extensive gardens and mature trees formed an oasis of greenery in the parched environment of Charters Towers and were an important part of the town landscape.

[1] Although gold production on the field peaked in 1899 at an impressive 337,000 ounces, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth and by 1920 only one mine was still operational.

Property prices fell and the availability of large redundant buildings in a town servicing a wide area and connected to major centres by rail suggested the possibility of schools to several churches.

The school was officially opened by Rev Dr Henry Youngman, President General of the Methodist Church of Australia, on 23 April 1920.

In 1919 the College Council was able to purchase the abandoned dam and tailings area below the house, which had been part of Plant's Bonnie Dundee Mill, and by 1922 had developed it into a sports field.

The house stands on a rise overlooking the school ovals and across the city to the central business district of Charters Towers.

The main staircase leading from the entrance hall is graceful in form with cast metal balustrades supporting a sinuously curved timber handrail which is constructed of cedar, as is the majority of joinery in the house.

[1] The former Servants Quarters is a single storey brick building located on slightly more elevated land to the rear of the house.

Plant, demonstrates the fluctuations in fortune attendant upon goldfields and the ways in which some depleted fields were able to create new economic lives through different ventures.

Charters Towers was an extraordinarily rich goldfield and Thornburgh, as a large and opulent villa, was a product of the towns richest era when many high quality buildings were constructed.

As an important boarding school in the north it demonstrates the way in which redundant buildings and the well developed infrastructure of Charters Towers allowed the town to find a new role as an educational centre.

Although Thornburgh has undergone some modifications for use as a school, it is still a good example of a high quality, well detailed and fashionable villa of its era and was designed by one of North Queensland 's leading architectural firms.

Thornburgh House as a home is associated with the life and work of Edmund Plant, an important figure in mining in Charters Towers.

Bullow, both endowed with the rare combination of scholastic gifts and organisational ability and to whom the subsequent high reputation of the school owed much.