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HUMBUG HILL WORKINGS
CRESWICK REGIONAL PARK AND SLATY CREEK ROAD CRESWICK, HEPBURN SHIRE

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Statement of Significance
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Statement of Significance

Note: This place is also listed on the Victorian Heritage Register as a place of significance to the State of Victoria. Please see VHR H1228 for further information.

The Humbug Hill Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site consists of a sluicing pit about 100 metres by 50 metres containing a network of pebble dumps and tail races. The slope below the pit has been extensively ground sluiced and the gully draining from the southern end of the pit has been deeply excavated by high pressure water. At least two water races brought water to Humbug Hill, one from Bragge's Dam (across Salty Creek); the other from Russells Reservoir (down Lincoln Gully). The latter race is still well preserved and is included in the nomination.

The Humbug Hill Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site is of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.

The Humbug Hill Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site 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. Hydraulic sluicing of alluvial gold deposits is an important key ingredient in an understanding of gold mining technology as it was employed in country where water was plentiful and perennial.

The Humbug Hill Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site 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
  
  HUMBUG HILL WORKINGS - History
  Heritage Inventory History of Site: The alluvial workings surviving on Humbug Hill are mainly associated with the mining of high terrace Tertiary gravels which were deposited up to 40 million years ago. The hill, along with others in the vicinity, was rushed in 1854 and proved to be extremely good for sluicing, being covered by 30ft of rich gold-bearing gravels. Water to work the deposits was brought in an open channel (called a race) from a reservoir, now known as Russells Reservoir. The race from this reservoir wound its way for considerable distance round the heads of intervening gullies before reaching the hill. The Humbug Sluicing Company used a patent bitumentized pipe to cross Slaty Creek: the pipe had a diameter of 8 inches, was a half mile long, and had a maximum thickness of 7/8th of an inch.Due to the dryness of the environment, sluicing was extremely seasonal, and when a good stream of water came through, work was carried on day and night. This was the case on Humbug Hill in the winter of 1859, where a sluicing party worked shifts (6 hours on, 12 hours of) washing 1,500 cubic yards of soil before the water run out. For their efforts they obtained 245 ounces of gold. The Humbug Hill operation, which involved cutting faces, turning the water along the base of the face and collapsing blocks of ground from 20 to 50 tons, appears to be the principal sluicing technique used at Creswick. The main work on the Tertiary gravels at Creswick had ended by the mid 1860s. By the end of the 1865/66 drought only the Chinese were still preserving with shallow alluvial mining at Creswick, particularly sluicing.
  
  Heritage Inventory Description
  
  HUMBUG HILL WORKINGS - Heritage Inventory Description
  
  Modern quarry - Large stone quarry, Selkirks extraction lease, crown of Humbug Hill.Sluice hole - Immediately north of the entrance to the extraction lease is a massive sluice hole which is approximately 200 metres wide and 50 metres deep. The sluice hole is partly filled with wash which has now turned the sluice hole into a dam. There is a smaller sluice hole further down the track (to the south).Cement workings - The workings are located 500 metres south of the entrance road to extraction lease, near summit of Humbug Hill. Workings consist of extensive open cutting (5 metre high faces), dumps of pebbles, drainage channels and traces of a water race. Several tail races run from the open cutting, some appear to fed into slum ponds.Hillslope sluicing - The slopes below the cement workings have been stripped to bedrock: now a bare landscape containing dumps of quartz, water races and dam embankments.Mine workings - On the hill, to the east of the cement workings, are a partly quarried mullock heap, several small heaps with short dumping lines and a collapsed adit. Sand dumps - Below the cement/hillslope workings (east of track) is a large full sand pond.Tail race/sand pond - 200 metres from the junction of Slaty Creek and Petticoat Road two deeply cut tail races are visible in the cutting on the western side of the track. The races drain to a large sand pond which lies immediately below the eastern side of the track.
  
  Heritage Inventory Significance: The site has: Historical significance - one of Creswick's main sluicing localities Scientific significance - well preserved alluvial mining landscape Network values - Humbug Hill workings, Lincoln Gully working, Mills Reef working, Humbug Hill water race, and Russells Reservoir SIGNIFICANCE RANKING: National Estate
  
  Recorded by: David Bannear
  
  Heritage Inventory Site Features: - sluice hole. - cement workings. - hillslope sluicing. - mine workings. - sand dumpings. - tail race/sand pond.
- Show:
- HUMBUG HILL HYDRAULIC GOLD SLUICING SITE
  
  Victorian Heritage Register H1228
- LINCOLN GULLY
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory
- AH YOUNG'S GARDENS
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory