MAGPIE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS

MAGPIE HISTORIC RESERVE BEECHWORTH, INDIGO SHIRE

All information on this page is maintained by Heritage Victoria. Click below for their website and contact details.

Victorian Heritage Inventory

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    MAGPIE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS - History

    Heritage Inventory History of Site:
    The Magpie Creek diggings were opened in 1856. In 1864, about 150 Chinese rushed Magpie Creek, all engaging in surfacing and sinking. More than 150 Chinese miners remained in exclusive occupation of the alluvial ground at Magpie Creek until at least 1867. Memorably, they were joined by a lone European miner for a short time in early 1866. Many claims yielded as much as 30 to 40 oz per week that winter. In 1887, Dunn wrote:
    "In the valley of Magpie Creek there is an extensive deposit of shingle over the wash-dirt. For over twenty years a large party of Chinese have been working the lead. They are now sluicing away the whole of the drift, and if it proves payable there is ground enough for another 30 years' work."
    The New Wooragee Sluicing Co. operated a sand pump in the Wooragee area, possibly extending to Magpie Creek, during the first ten years of this century.

    Heritage Inventory Description

    MAGPIE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS - Heritage Inventory Description

    The Magpie Creek workings feature a complex system of water diversions, deep channels, large dams, stone diversion walls, as well as shafts with mullock heaps, and high sluiced faces.

    Heritage Inventory Significance: National EstateThe Magpie Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice consists of a 200 metre long stone embankment which was probably built in the mid 1860s when the site was extensively reworked by Chinese miners The embankment was used to divert the waters of Magpie Creek away from its natural bed which was then mined for its alluvial gold.The Magpie Creek Gold Mining Diversion Sluice is of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.The Magpie 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 Magpie 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.

    Heritage Inventory Key Components: Creek diversion - The stone-retained (local granite blocks) section of the diversion channel is approximately 200 m long and its walls are 1.5 m high. Water now runs only though the diversion channel. At the southern end of the sluice is an extensive dump of pebbles and wash. A water race takes off from the northern end of the sluice. The sluicing complex is completely free of blackberries. Dredged landscape - The southern part of the Historic Reserve has been sluiced and dredged and presents a confusing and overgrown landscape of dredge holes, slum ponds and disturbed ground.

• Location map
• Explore related places
  • Show:
    -- select -- Nearby Places

  • 
    MAGPIE CREEK GOLD MINING DIVERSION SLUICE

    

    Victorian Heritage Register H1253
  • MAGPIE CREEK ALLUVIAL GOLDFIELD

    

    Victorian Heritage Inventory
  • MAGPIE CREEK ALLUVIAL WORKINGS

    

    Victorian Heritage Inventory
• Public contributions