Helidon
Postcode: 4344
Helidon is a town in the Lockyer Valley region of south east Queensland, Australia. Helidon is located on the Warrego Highway, 106 kilometres west of the state capital, Brisbane and 21 kilometres east of Toowoomba. The town is in the Gatton Shire Local government area and had a population of 560 at the 2001 census.
Helidon is well known in Queensland for its high quality sandstone used extensively in private and public buildings in the state and elsewhere including Brisbane City Hall. Helidon is also the location of a natural mineral spring.
In the late 1990s, Helidon became the home of the Magnificat meal movement, a controversial offshoot of the Catholic Church. The movement has been described as a cult by William M Morris, bishop of the local Diocese of Toowoomba.
No boundary fencing was in place. The most common method of ‘tree blazing’ was used to identify the different lots of land. Most of the licence holders were “Absentee Licence Holders”. These people employed overseers to manage the land and used ex-convicts, ticket of leave men and new settlers to Australia, as shepherds and labourers.