EXHIBITION BATTERY
DARGO FOREST ROAD DARGO, WELLINGTON SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
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EXHIBITION BATTERY - History
Heritage Inventory History of Site: The Exhibition Co., mining about 5 km south-west of Dargo township (in a paddock on the south side of the road to Waterford), installed a steam-powered battery in September 1881, at which time they already had 100 tons of quartz awaiting crushing. With yields of 1¼ oz per ton, the company was able to pay a £200 dividend by the end of that year. The battery also crushed for other mines in the vicinity, including the Parnell and the Perseverence. Constant water shortages dogged the battery's operations: in the winter of 1884, its passes and hoppers were choked with quartz, which could not be cleared until sufficient rain fell to fill the battery dam. The Exhibition mine was worked by tributers from 1885, and continued to give good returns from a 'thin and difficult' reef throughout the 1880s. Due to a large gap in mining records, the next-found reference to the Exhibition Reef is dated 1906, at which time payable stone was being raised by the Exhibition Co. No mention was made of a battery at the mine; a government battery at Dargo served other small mines in the vicinity at that period. The Exhibition mine was in the hands of tributers from 1908 until it closed down in about 1910.Christie & Gray say that the battery now located in Shortcut Road, 5 km south of Dargo, is the government battery which was removed from Dargo to Grant in 1911, then moved to its present site during the 1930s. Churchward (Table 4.1) calls the site the Exhibition battery and, given that the location coincides with that of the Exhibition Reef, that interpretation seems more plausible than Christie & Gray's claim that it was the government battery. Had the government installed a battery for the use of prospectors in the Exhibition/Perseverence reefs locality during the 1930s, it is unlikely to have been left on the site to decay.Heritage Inventory Description
EXHIBITION BATTERY - Heritage Inventory Description
Site consists of battery box and portable steam engine.
Heritage Inventory Significance: Scientific significanceùas a rare type of site: ie., in situ portable steam engine and battery foundations.Archaeological potentialùyesùpossiblity of buried components.
Heritage Inventory Site Features: Features of the Exhibition battery site are relics of a battery and a portable steam engine.Battery boxù5-head battery box, from which the stampers have been removed. The box, manufactured by Johns & Waygood Ltd, Hydraulic & General Engineering, Sturt Street, Melbourne, still rests on well-preserved timber mortar blocks. To the west of the battery is a cam shaft and 6ft-diameter fly wheel. The fly wheel is of solid (not spoked) construction. Portable steam engineùBelow and slightly to the east of the battery is a portable, single-cylinder steam engine. The flue has rusted away and the fly-wheel is held in position only by a single strand of wire. The engine is upright, still standing on its iron wheels. Apparently the engine had collapsed but was re-erected in 1982. Diameter of fly wheel, 5 ft; diameter of cylinder, 8¢ inches; overall length of engine, 11 ft. The boiler was inspected on 2-3-1905, and the inscription further reads 'N3, M.D., T180, W90'.
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EXHIBITION BATTERYVictorian Heritage Inventory
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