Swantons Battery Site and Cyanide Vats, Stuart Mill area, STUART MILL
STUART MILL, NORTHERN GRAMPIANS SHIRE
-
Add to tour
You must log in to do that.
-
Share
-
Shortlist place
You must log in to do that.
- Download report
Statement of Significance
This area includes a battery site which is dominated by the remains of a large stone boiler setting, together with a scatter of ripped up bed logs and stamper foundations. A tailings dump 30 m wide and 1.5 m high, and three buried galvanised iron cyanide vats are also located on site. The battery operated in the 1890s, while the cyanide vats date from this century.
The Swanton's Battery site and cyanide vats are historically and scientifically important at a LOCAL level as a substantially intact example of an important gold mining technique. Gold mining sites are of crucial importance for the pivotal role they have played since 1851 in the development of Victoria.
Overall the Swanton's Battery site and cyanide vats are of LOCAL significance.
RECOMMENDED LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE: LOCAL
-
-
Swantons Battery Site and Cyanide Vats, Stuart Mill area, STUART MILL - Physical Description 1
DESCRIPTION & INTERPRETATION:
Site 63.0. Battery site (Maybe the site of Swanton's battery which was operating in 1897).
Battery site. Site is dominated by the remains of a 25 ft long, 8 ft wide, stone boiler setting. On the eastern side of the boiler setting is a scatter of ripped up bed logs. The area of the stamper foundations has been excavated.
Sludge pond. Downhill (north) from the battery, slightly to the east is a small quarried sludge pond.
Swantons Battery Site and Cyanide Vats, Stuart Mill area, STUART MILL - Physical Description 2
Site 63.1. Cyanide works (Cyaniding commenced in the Mining Division c.1897).
Tailings dump and cyanide works. Downhill (slightly to the west) from the battery site is a raised treated tailings dump which is approximately 30 metres wide and 1.5 metres high. On top of the heap are three buried 19 ft diameter galvanised iron cyanide vats. In the gully below the dump is a small water dam.
Tailings dump. Uphill or south of the battery is another raised dump of treated tailings (measuring approx. 50 x 30 metres, 2 metres high).
Swantons Battery Site and Cyanide Vats, Stuart Mill area, STUART MILL - Physical Description 3
63.2. Reef workings (Old Christina Reef, late nineteenth century).
Reef workings. 300 metres south of the battery side is a line of bulldozed small mullock heaps.
Swantons Battery Site and Cyanide Vats, Stuart Mill area, STUART MILL - Physical Description 4
INTEGRITY/CONDITION: Poor.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Site 63.2 has poor integrity and little historical significance and hence low cultural significance. Sites 63.0 and 63.1 have:
. Historical Significance, because together the two sites represent a sequence of uses (quartz crushing and cyaniding) over time.
. Scientific Significance, because of the survival of a battery foundations and cyanide works.
Heritage Study and Grading
Northern Grampians - Shire of Northern Grampians - Stage 2 Heritage Study
Author: Wendy Jacobs, Vicki Johnson, David Rowe, Phil Taylor
Year: 2004
Grading: Local
-
-
-
-
-
GISIS CO MINE SITE, STUART MILLVictorian Heritage Inventory
-
MINE WORKINGS STUART MILLVictorian Heritage Inventory
-
Malcom's Corner General StoreNational Trust
-
-