THOMSON RIVER DIVERSION TUNNEL
THOMSON RIVER - 4KM SW OF WALHALLA, BAW BAW SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The Thomson River Diversion Tunnel is located about 4km south-west of Walhalla in Gippsland, 1.5km below where Stringers Creek joins the Thomson River. The tunnel was driven through a ridge of land called Stockriders Spur, around which the river formed a horseshoe bend.
Diversion tunnels facilitated alluvial gold mining along the former courses of rivers. After completion the river would flow through the tunnel, allowing in summer time most or all of the flow to be diverted so that the river bed could be sluiced for alluvial gold. In winter the volume of water flow would probably resume the former course, making sluicing very difficult.
Construction of the Thomson River Diversion Tunnel by the Thomson River Alluvial Gold and Tailings Recovery Company was begun in August 1911. Work started at the outlet end and the tunnel was driven at an incline through the slate rock. Construction was completed around October 1912 by blasting through rock at the inlet end. The total length of the tunnel is about 561’ (171m). The tunnel is not straight, but reportedly has a sharp change of angle below the entrance and again near the outlet. The entry and exits of the tunnel contribute to the significance as the most visible evidence of the scope of the undertaking.
The fortunes of the Thomson River Alluvial Gold and Tailings Recovery Company are not known, but the working of the horseshoe bend of the Thomson River is not believed to have brought significant dividends. Alluvial mining was never a major feature of the Walhalla field, being confined to sluicing on the beds and banks of Thomson River and its tributaries. In 1886, the mining surveyor observed that nearly all the beds had at some time or other been passed through the sluice-box.
How is it significant?
The Thomson River Diversion Tunnel is of historical and Archaeological significance to the State of Victoria.
Why is it significant?
The Thomson River Diversion Tunnel is historically and archaeologically significant as evidence of one of the dying stages of an industry that had dominated Gippsland for over fifty years. The settlement of the Walhalla area from the mid 1860s had been on the basis of reef mining. With the rapid decline in the fortunes and subsequent closure in 1914 of such prolific mines as Long Tunnel, the sluicing of this part of the Thomson River was one of the last initiatives to win payable gold. Sluicing for alluvial gold in the Thomson River in 1912 had turned the Walhalla wheel full circle from the first prospectors working for gold in Stringers Creek in the early 1860s. The tunnel is significant as one of the last and longest diversion tunnels constructed for winning gold in the Victoria.
The Thomson River Diversion Tunnel is socially significant as a component of one Victoria’s most evocative gold mining landscapes. The tunnel contributes to a unique cultural and historical landscape, which was dominated by gold in the nineteenth century, but a landscape with little permanent evidence of its former importance.
[Source: Victorian Heritage Register]
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THOMSON RIVER DIVERSION TUNNEL - History
Thomson River Tunnel, now known as Horseshoe Tunnel and sometimes as Chinese Tunnel, was built through Stockriders' SPur in 1911-12 by the Thomson River Alluvial Gold and Trailings Recovery Company. (The Walhalla Chronicle 16 February 1912 and 27 September 1912).The tunnel diverted a length of the Thomson River in order that alluvial gold could be won from the riverbed
Heritage Inventory Description
THOMSON RIVER DIVERSION TUNNEL - Heritage Inventory Description
Tunnel, cut through hill, diverting Thomson River allowing alluvial miners to work dry bed of river
Heritage Inventory Significance: Regional/State. An important feature from the early alluvial mining period.
Informant: Richard Aitken, Terry and Diane Lowater "Friends of the Tunnel"/nRecorded by: R Supple et al Date Recorded: 1989
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THOMSON RIVER DIVERSION TUNNEL SITEVictorian Heritage Register H1990
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THOMSON RIVER MINE SHAFT & ADITVictorian Heritage Inventory
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THOMSON RIVER TAIL RACE/DIVERSION TUNNELVictorian Heritage Inventory
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