BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINE
20 JACK SMITHS LANE LEXTON, PYRENEES SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
This record has minimal details. Please look to the right-hand-side bar for any further details about this record.
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BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINE - History
While there is no specific documentary evidence about Briody Prospector Mine, it is reasonable to conclude that it was for extracting gold. There were no large discoveries of gold in the immediate vicinity of Lexton, although commercial quantities were extracted on a small scale from mines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the closest being the Luxor Mine two miles northwest of the Lexton Township and the Star of Lexton company shafts at unspecified locations in 1892. The precise history of the site is not known, but Oulton does provide information about the twentieth century mining history of the area close to the Briody quartz extraction pit. In the 1930s the Government provided basic prospecting materials, a tent and a railway ticket to unemployed men willing to try their luck at gold mining (Oulton 1985: 11 8). Some 15,650 men took advantage of the scheme and some of these made their way to an area of Crown land near Granite Hill, known as 'Cos', short for the Cosmopolitan Gold Sluicing Company which had earlier operated in the area. Briody Prospector Mine could be related with th is scheme although is more likely to represent ad hoc gold prospection in the early twentieth century.
BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINE - Interpretation of Site
The larger pit (phase 1 activity) is likely a quartz extraction pit with excavated material heaped around the edge where, in pursuit of gold, quartz was broken and crushed. The smaller pit (phase 2 activity) is likely a later fossick pit where previously excavated material was reworked , however quartz was also extracted from this pit below the level of the bank. The site represents two phases of ad hoc gold prospection.
BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINE - Archaeological Significance
Moderate - pit is located in a paddock under grass and would not have been subject to much, if any, ground disturbance. Possibility of further sub-surface remains.
Heritage Inventory Description
BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINE - Heritage Inventory Description
Briody Prospector Mine is located in a paddock under grass on a property off Jack Smiths Lane on the northern side of the Beaufort - Lexton Road. The site is comprised of two open, hand dug subsoil-cut pits. The larger pit is sub-oval in shape measuring 9m in length east - west, 8m in width north - south with a maximum depth of 1 m. The pit is convex in profile. The pit is surrounded by a horseshoe shaped bank of upcast material (crushed and broken quartz in a matrix of silty clay); on average 1 m in width and 40cm in height, with a 1.5m opening at the west. The smaller pit abuts the larger pit on the eastern side, cutting the bank. The pit is sub-oval in shape measuring 2m in length north - south, 1.5m in width east - west with a maximum depth of 80cm. The pit is concave in profile.
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BRIODY PROSPECTOR MINEVictorian Heritage Inventory
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