FORMER BAGSHOT STATION PRECINCT
MIDLAND HIGHWAY BAGSHOT, GREATER BENDIGO CITY
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Statement of Significance
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FORMER BAGSHOT STATION PRECINCT - History
There appears little recorded regarding the structure(s) associated with Bagshot Railway Station. Bagshot Railway Station.- The Station is noted as lying 111 ¾ miles from Melbourne (A.H. Massina & Co's weather almanac and general guide and handbook for Victoria for ... with calendar and map of railway systems., no.(1884), 1884-01-01, p.43).
- The Bagshot Railway Station was opened in 1882. The Bagshot Post Office and Telegraph Office operated from the station from 1884. The station and railway residence burnt down in 1900 and were rebuilt in 1901. Firewood cleared from local selections from the 1860s was transported to the Bagshot station for transport to the mines in Bendigo as well as to Melbourne, and railway sleepers were also milled and shipped from the station. During the 1943-44 drought, potatoes were delivered to the station for stock feed, and in the 1950s bags of superphosphate ordered by district farmers. Refs: Arnold, Ken 2008, Bendigo its Environs - The Way it Was Volume 2, Bendigo, Crown Castleton. Ballinger R. 2020, Former Shire of Huntly Heritage Study Stage 1 Vol 2 FINAL June 20 (1). Prepared for the City of Greater Bendigo. Turner, Esma (ed) 2014, Full steam ahead: Bendigo to Murray River Railway 1864-2014, Huntly, Huntly & Districts' Historical Society Inc.
- By 1881 the local community (Huntly) petitioned for a railway station at Bagshot, however more than a ‘Flag Station’ as previously proposed. Economic development but also access to the goods and produce transported from the Murray to Bendigo and Melbourne. A Flag railroad station is where trains stop only when a flag or other signal is displayed or when passengers are to be discharged. (Bendigo Advertiser (Vic.: 1855 - 1918) View title info Mon 25 Jul 1881 Page 3 PROPOSED RAILWAY STATION AT BAGSHOT).
- Bagshot is noted for a furore regarding the nomination of a woman as a Station Master around 1893. This is seen as both neglect by the Bagshot community and negligence on the part of the Rail Authority (‘Railway Commisioners’) – and is interpreted as leaving the position vacant. However, it is stated that if the Rail Authority trained women to work as Station Masters then there would be no issue, but as they do not the woman in charge of Bagshot cannot legally accept money for goods transported and thus is an economic drag on local prosperity/development. A woman it seemed could not operate the telegraph office which was closed around the same period. There is mention of retrenchments in a number of articles in this period which points to a recession in this period and subsequent government downsizing.
- The community is noted to have been established ’40 years before’ so about the 1850s. The loss of the telegraph office is alluded to, and reference to 40 telegrams a month being sent in the past, and further ‘evidence’ of community neglect. The Station is also claimed to have made £1000 for the month of November 1893. The inability of an untrained woman Station Master at this time coupled with the loss of the telegraph is seen as large economic blows to the local community. (The Bendigo Independent (Vic. : 1891 - 1918)Friday 17 February 1893 - Page 4)
- The Railway Station was decommissioned in 1979, no doubt because of the services it rendered being replaced by other modes of transport.
FORMER BAGSHOT STATION PRECINCT - Interpretation of Site
The site is what remains of the Bagshot Railway Platform (built 1882). At its southern end there is assumed what remains of a return wall of the platform. This return wall is eroding out of the large man made mound that lies behind the platform proper and which probably contains the soils that consolidated the platform within the remaining brick foundation structure. The previous level of the platform is unknown and no evidence is available on the spoil wall which gives no appearance or indication of being a natural formation. Further investigation revealed that adjacent and extending outwards from the south of the platform are redgum sleepers believed to have formed a wooden staircase rising to the platform proper. These are fire damaged and may correspond to a burning event evident on the face of the escarpment perhaps both evidence of the burning down of the station in 1900 mentioned above. Aside from what remains of the platform it is plausible that there are remains of a Station Masters quarters, the railway Station building proper and a post/telegraph office. These may be one single building and given the utilitarian nature of the history of the station and the small community it served one could reasonably assume so. Therefore the maps and shapefiles provided outline the platform as it appears today but also includes the large spoil heap behind it as an area of archaeological potential, altogether forming a precinct. To this effect a further buffer has been provided however it all lies within the rail reserve. Indeed the spoil mound ends abruptly at the barbed wire property fence that delineates the rail corridor.
Heritage Inventory Description
FORMER BAGSHOT STATION PRECINCT - Heritage Inventory Description
Currently the length of the foundations of the Bagshot Railway Platform c.84m (in length) remains in situ in poor to moderate condition within the Rail Reserve corridor at above address/coordinates. It stands before an artificial mound of c. 100m in length and 15m in depth wholly within the rail corridor. Part of a more consolidated brick return wall (red clay hand pressed with small aggregate particles throughout) is present at the south end of the platform that lines up with the end of the platform. The return wall is 11 brick courses high. The bricks remaining along the length of the platform are only a single course high. All bricks sit upon a Lime/mixed aggregate grout/concrete with large quartzite stones present in one instance. It is maintained by Victorian Rail amateur historians that railway platforms were built up by any soils/gravels quarried nearby and any other sort of fill available. This being the case it is most likely that the contents of the platform (falling within the brick foundations) were mechanically pushed back to form the mound that now stand behind (to the west) of the platform. It is possible that any railway station building foundations/remains – including possible telegraph office, (most likely one and the same building - and most likely of timber construction) associated with the platform may lie under this mound.
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FINCHAM AND HOBDAY PIPE ORGANVictorian Heritage Register H2450
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STATE GOVERNMENT OFFICES, GEELONGVictorian Heritage Register H2451
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NORTH MELBOURNE POTTERYVictorian Heritage Inventory
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