PETHYBRIDGES ROAD HUT SITE

SPRING CREEK ROAD AND PETHYBRIDGES ROAD TARADALE, MOUNT ALEXANDER SHIRE

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Victorian Heritage Inventory

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    PETHYBRIDGES ROAD HUT SITE - History

    Heritage Inventory History of Site: This area was a part of the Carlrushe station and, after 1839, of the St. Agnes station. On 5/2/1855 the land was purchased by William Swan Urquhart, the former Government Surveyor, who had settled at Taradale. The banks of the creek below this site were subject to shallow alluvial gold working, while a tunnel was driven in the south bank, passing under the hill on which the site is located. A puddling machine was erected between the tunnel and the creek (site H7723-0530). This mining activity probably took place during the 1860s and 1870s, when the Victoria Reef was being worked.
    

    Interpretation of Site

    PETHYBRIDGES ROAD HUT SITE - Interpretation of Site

    Heritage Inventory Interpretation: The attribution of a date to this site is difficult. It is possible that it may date to the pre-mining pastoral period. If so, then the huts, enclosure and the level platform area may have been a part of an outstation of the Carlrushe and/or St. Agnes stations. This would date the site to the period 1836 to 1852. The close proximity to an area of gold workings (sites H7723-0530 and H7723-0531) suggests that the two sites may be related. The huts and the other structures may have been used by miners, dating the site to the 1860s or 1870s. It is possible that the huts predate the mining activity and were reused by miners.

    Heritage Inventory Description

    PETHYBRIDGES ROAD HUT SITE - Heritage Inventory Description

    A complex of structures, including two stone hut bases, a basalt dry stone enclosure and platform and a small rectangular stone structure built into the hillside. There are fireplaces preserved in each of the huts and some mud mortar is preserved between the stones.

    Heritage Inventory Significance: High archaeological significance (9). There is a strong possibility that in situ archaeological deposits exist at this site. The likely association of this site with early pastoral activities, or with gold mining, increases its significance. High regional historical significance because of the likely association of the site with the earliest pastoral use of the area and/or with gold mining.

    Recorded by: Vincent Clark. Date Recorded: September 1998/n

    Heritage Inventory Site Features: - two hut foundations. A probable stone fireplace/chimney butt remain from the first. Fireplace/chimney and a line of basalt foundation, measuring 3.7 x 8.3 metres, survives from the other. Mortar in the fireplaces appears to be mud. - stone hut/mine adit on the ridge to the east of the hut foundations is a structure, approximately 2 metres square, consisting of a shallow depression with drystone (shale) lining. - enclosure, 12 x 18 metres, consisting of stone wall remains on the north and west sides and a basalt platform in the south-west corner. This feature is located on the hill slope further to the east of the depression.
    
    

    Archeological Potential: Relics/Deposit,Remnant Structure

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