A couple of weekends back Mum and I visited the Beenleigh Historic Village which is a small collection of old buildings from the area that have been collated into a village like environment.

We arrived near opening and found a park on the street, and there were also plenty of spaces available in the carpark.  We received a quick introductary history about the Beenleigh area and we then purchased our tickets ($8 for adults and $6 for seniors).  We were given a printed brochure and left to explore village buildings.

There are a selection of about 20 buildings and many have been done furnished to represent how they may have looked in a particular era.

Clearly items have been donated and at times the items made no sense in the context.   Not sure if they have a curator but they need to take a bit of a closer look at some displays.  For example, in the museum was a glass cased cabinet with plastic mugs of Looney Toons characters –  these were a give away at a fast food restaurant some years ago.  I could see no purpose for these being in the museum.  While at a stretch you could draw a Movie World tie in, the inclusion of a Disney Lion King mug was 100% wrong.  Likewise, the Sydney 2000 Olympics items – why and how is this relevant to Beenleigh?

However, other displays were outstanding including the line drawings taken from old photos and the WW1 display which was also extremely interesting.

I found the use of the zombie mannequins in some places a little disturbing and creepy – you can a couple below in the photos but for the most part, I tried to take the photos without them in.  Regretfully now, as I they would have been an entire blog post on their own…

You can see the love that has gone into this village, but its clearly in need of educated staff and additional funding.  However, but its a good inexpensive visit for a taste of the local history and a popular spot for school visits.

We spent around 3 hours here which included a stop for a cup of tea and a slice at the cafe.  This is a nice spot to sit for a bit as the outdoor, covered cafe is the old train station platform.  Also of note is that the chocolate peppermint slice we had was gluten free.

One item to consider for those with mobility issues or children in strollers is it isn’t particularly wheelchair or pushchair friendly for some of the buildings.