SIX MILE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS
BUCKLAND GAP ROAD BEECHWORTH, INDIGO SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
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SIX MILE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS - History
Contextual History:History of Place:
Heritage Inventory History of Site:
Six-mile Creek is a southern tributary of Three-mile Creek, south of Beechworth. Alluvial miners worked at intervals along its course during 1852, with the main concentration at the creek's upper end, near its junction with the Three-mile. 'At the head of this creek,' wrote the mining surveyor in 1860, 'there is a tolerably good site for a reservoir, but the gathering ranges adjoining are so low and limited, that the quantity of water that would be collected would be small. The rocks also crop out very much in this part of the district, which allows water to be absorbed, and prevents races from being of much service.' It was probably due to this apparent shortage of water that few miners worked on the Six-mile during the 1860s, compared with the neighbouring Three-mile: miners numbered between 20 and 40, roughly half of them Chinese and half European.
Reefs were worked at the upper end of Six-mile Creek from 1866, one of the early reefing parties being Ah Gee and Co. A party of French men working a creek claim in 1871 discovered a very rich surface vein of quartz, which they named Bon's Reef and sold for £1,000. A battery was erected on the reef by its new owners. Several claims were taken up, and an old reef further up the creek was reopened. The Six-mile reefs sank from view in the mining records until 1879 when the Frenchman's Reef was revived and again yielded richly for a short time. The reefs were again taken up in 1889, at which time the workings were still confined to surface patches.
By the early 1900s, sections of Six-mile Creek were included in the sluicing claims of John Pund, whose large-scale operations made him one of the main gold producers on the field. In 1911, Fletcher was sluicing a claim at Six-mile by gravitation. Sluicing at Six-mile is likely to have continued until at least the 1920s, and possibly beyond, in the hands of large operators like GSG Amalgamated and Parkinson Alluvials.Heritage Inventory Description
SIX MILE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS - Heritage Inventory Description
The Six Mile Creek alluvial workings are located in the vicinity of Bates dam. Features include a boiler, stone fireplace, and examples of bank sluicing and hydraulic sluicing. Heritage Inventory Site Components:/nBoiler - At the southern end of Bates dam, on the south side, is a 12ft-high vertical boiler. Nearby are the remains of a stone fireplace. No other features are visible./nBank sluicing - The bank of the creek, above (east) of the boiler is an undisturbed example of bank sluicing, featuring stone-retained channels and massive mounds of pebbles./nHydraulic sluicing - The gully below Bates dam has been deeply sluiced. The absence of blackberry growth makes it a very visible and impressive sluiced landscape.
Heritage Inventory Significance: The site has scientific significance because of its rarity and visibility.
Heritage Inventory Site Features:
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CHINAMAN'S FLAT ALLUVIAL WORKINGSVictorian Heritage Inventory
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SIX MILE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGSVictorian Heritage Inventory
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