BREAKNECK GORGE PUDDLER
BREAKNECK GORGE, JUNCTION OF SPRING AND JIM CROW CREEKS ELEVATED PLAINS, HEPBURN SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The Breakneck Gorge Gold Puddling Site is located on the steep northern bank of Spring Creek, immediately below the base of a basalt escarpment. The site consists of the remnants of one puddling machine complete with stone retaining walls. The site is a good characteristic example of the puddling technology developed in Victoria from 1854 in response to the need to process enormous amounts of clayey soil which needed to be broken up to get at the gold. Horses were used to drag harrows around a circular ditch in which the soil and water were mixed.
How is it significant?
The Breakneck Gorge Gold Puddling Site is of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.
Why is it significant?
The Breakneck Gorge Gold Puddling Site is historically and scientifically important as a characteristic and well preserved example of a site associated with the earliest forms of gold mining which, from 1851, played a pivotal role in the development of Victoria. Puddling machine technology is particularly important in the history of Victorian gold mining as the only technology or method developed entirely on Victorian goldfields. The Breakneck Gorge Gold Puddling Site is particularly important because it was part of a deep lead mining operation. The gold seekers at this site were tunnelling under the basalt to get to the gold bearing sediments of an ancient river system. Remains of these small-scale deep lead mines are now very rare in Victoria.
The Breakneck Gorge Gold Puddling Site is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts which will be able to provide significant information about the cultural history of gold mining and the gold seekers themselves.
[Source: Victorian Heritage Register.]
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BREAKNECK GORGE PUDDLER - History
Heritage Inventory History of Site: Alluvial mining along Spring Creek commenced in 1853 when a rich and extensive alluvial deposit (known as the elevated plains lead) was discovered underlying the thick basaltic or volcanic lava deposit through which the creek had cut is course. The miners tunnelled under the basalt cap and obtained gold gold from ancient river gravels. These gravels had been deposited in the Tertiary period, up to forty million years ago. The auriferous wash retrieved was treated in puddlers or sluice boxes, and the tailings ( river pebbles) being deposited in heaps at the base of the escarpment. The water for teating the wash was conveyed by water races. One such race, which travelled along the east bank of Spring Creek was in existence prior to 1859. This race appears to have been constructed by Phass & Company. The mining of the sub-basaltic wash was still going strong in 1861 when it was reported that the greater portion of the elevated plains and other basaltic hills on the Spring and Sailors Creeks, and from thence downwards long Jim Crow Creek through Franklinford towards Yandoit were occupied, and that fresh tunnels were going in at short intervals. By the late 1860s the intensity of the mining along Spring Creek would have waned and, with European miners increasingly being attracted towards the quartz mining industry, the workings would have become the realm of perservering Chinese miners.Heritage Inventory Description
BREAKNECK GORGE PUDDLER - Heritage Inventory Description
Puddler - Below walking track (old water race) is a benched platform containing a weathered 18ft puddler. The puddler has no pivot post or slabbing and the inner mound is beginning to merge with the puddling trench. The platform is benched by a 10ft high stone wall. The rear of the puddling platform is also stone retained. Adits - collapsed and overgrown adits above the puddling machine site./n
Heritage Inventory Significance: The site has:Scientific significance - Rare type of site, puddler associated with mining of sub-basaltic gravels.Network values - Associated with water race, which has now been utilized as a walking trackSIGNIFICANCE RANKING: National Estate
Recorded by: David Bannear
Heritage Inventory Site Features: - puddler - adits
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JIM CROW CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICEVictorian Heritage Register H1257
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BREAKNECK GORGE GOLD PUDDLING SITEVictorian Heritage Register H1305
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HEPBURN TERRACESVictorian Heritage Inventory
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