Grandchester

Grandchester is a rural village on the Brisbane to Toowoomba railway line, 30 km west of Ipswich.

When only a locality the place was known as Bigge's Camp, but it came to prominence in 1865 as the temporary terminus of Queensland's first railway line from Ipswich. The surveyor-general changed the name to the better-sounding but similar-meaning Grandchester: Bigge became the French grand (big) and chester is English for town or encampment.