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STOCKYARD CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE
HOWQUA TRACK HOWQUA, MANSFIELD SHIRE

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Statement of Significance
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Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The Stockyard Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice consists of a 250 metre long stone embankment with three separate diversions. Associated with the diversions are pebble dumps and extensive remains of bank quarrying. The creek was extensively worked by alluvial miners during the mid-nineteenth century. The embankment was used to divert the waters of Stockyard Creek through the sluice boxes, and away from its natural bed and southern bank, which were then mined for its alluvial gold.

How is it significant?

The Stockyard Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice is of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.

Why is it significant?

The Stockyard Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice is historically and scientifically important as a characteristic and well preserved example of an early form of gold mining. Gold mining sites are of crucial importance for the pivotal role they have played since 1851 in the development of Victoria. Water diversion and sluicing are important key ingredients in an understanding of gold mining technology as it was employed in mountainous country where water was plentiful and perennial.

The Stockyard Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts and evidence 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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- History
  
  STOCKYARD CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE - History
  Heritage Inventory History of Site: Stockyard Creek was one of the localities where alluvial gold was found and worked following the original Howqua rush to Cameron's Creek in 1866. Nuggets of up to 45 oz and 'tolerably rich' yields are said to have been obtained from Stockyard Creek. By 1882, the alluvial diggings of the Howqua valley were deserted 'save by two or three men'.The diversion sluice on Stockyard Creek would have operated in much the same way as one described at Dry Creek in 1861, which involved 'cutting a tail race in the rock in the bed of the creek, and fixing a permanent set of large boxes, and working the points and sides of the creek by means of branch boxes, all, however, falling into the main ones'. (Mining Surveyors' Report (Kilmore Division), January 1861)
  
  References:
  Murray
  Wylie (1987), p. 44
  
  Heritage Inventory Description
  
  STOCKYARD CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE - Heritage Inventory Description
  
  250m-long stone-retained sluice with three distinct channels. The sluice has a main channel (through which the creek currently runs) and two shorter side channels. Each of the channels is 6 ft deep and about 4 ft wide. Associated with the sluice are mounds of pebbles and extensive bank quarrying.
  
  Heritage Inventory Significance: National Estate The site has scientific significance because of its rarity, intactness and visibility.
- Show:
- STOCKYARD CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE
  
  Victorian Heritage Register H1255
- STOCKYARD CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory
- MOUNTAIN CHIEF MINE SITE
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory