Community & Business
5 November, 2025
Passchendale in Millmerran changes hands
After a long time with one owner, Passchendale in Campbell Street, Millmerran, has sold recently.
It is understood the buyer is a local family and it is comforting to know that the property will stay in local hands.
Until its recent sale, the house was run as a Bed and Breakfast and the saddlery as a Coffee Shop.
Following is the history of this property and how it came to have its name, the misspelling of Passchendaele, a World War I battlefield in France.
Shortly after Millmerran became a Shire in 1913, all small towns and villages scattered across the Darling Downs heard the call to war and many of her finest young men enlisted to fight in the Great War, the “war to end all wars”.
One of these was Michael Walter Flynn from Millmerran.
This is his story and that of his farming family.
Michael came from a large family of 10, born to Michael and Mary Ann Flynn.
The elder Michael, an immigrant from Ireland, managed Junction Station near Millmerran.
He was killed in a riding accident in 1897, at only 52 years of age.
He is buried in a private graveyard on neighbouring Western Creek Station.
After her husband’s death, Mary Ann bought the 1300 acre property “Greyleigh” closer to Millmerran on the Captains Mountain Road (now the Gore Highway).
This pioneer woman raised her family there in a house she built in 1903, which was removed and still stands at 116 Bruce Road, Millmerran.
Michael, 23, and his 32 year old brother William (Bill) enlisted early in 1916 and were sent to fight on the Western Front in France.
Standing beside Bill, Michael was killed by a sniper’s bullet on 11 February 1917 at Passchendaele.
He is buried in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, France.
Family legend says that Bill became a sniper and spent the rest of the war trying to avenge his little brother’s death.
On his discharge just before ANZAC Day in 1919, Bill returned to Millmerran and built a house at 57 Campbell Street.
The (misspelled) name “Passchendale”, cut into the iron ridgecap, is in memory of his brother.
As well as farming on Captains Mountain, he operated a saddlery from the small building at the front of the house.
Bill is buried in the Millmerran Cemetery, as is his mother, who has a tribute to her son Michael engraved on her headstone.
Mary Ann died in 1919 and her son Arthur farmed on the property until his death in 1963.
His sons, Stanley and Alton, split the property into what is now “The Belahs” and “Greyleigh”.
They farmed there until they sold out in the 1970s.
Alton’s son Roy Flynn, from whom much of this story has been sourced, grew up at “Greyleigh” and remembers Bill.
After attending school in Toowoomba, Roy came back to Millmerran where he successfully applied for a clerk’s job at the local Council.
Roy spent his whole working life serving the ratepayers of Millmerran, ending up as Council’s Chief Executive Officer and retiring when amalgamation into Toowoomba Regional Council was forced on the protesting community.
He was awarded an OAM for service to the community, and lived for many years with his wife, another Mary-Ann Flynn, on “Gwandalan” less than 300 metres from the original “Greyleigh” property.
He and his family carry on the proud Flynn tradition in the Millmerran district.
- Wendy Moline
