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MONARCH BATTERY

Location

GREAT ALPINE ROAD HARRIETVILLE, ALPINE SHIRE

Level

Heritage Inventory Site

Statement of Significance

The Monarch Gold Battery Site consists of the remains of one 5-head stamp battery (in a 10-head iron frame), portable steam engine, shaking table, various buried and partly buried piece of machinery, blacksmith shop and quartz mine workings. The battery and portable steam engine etc., are remnants of crushing facility that last worked in 1935. The site is obscured by blackberry bushes and tree ferns.

The Monarch Gold Battery Site is of historical and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.

The Monarch Gold Battery Site is historically and scientifically important as a characteristic and well preserved example of an important form of gold mining. Although being very close to the main Harrietville Road, the machinery has not been significantly scavenged.

Gold mining sites are of crucial importance for the pivotal role they have played since 1851 in the development of Victoria. As well as being a significant producer of Victoria's nineteenth century wealth, with its intensive use of machinery, played an important role in the development of Victorian manufacturing industry. The abandoned mining machinery at the Monarch battery site is historically important for its evocation of the adventurousness, hardship, and isolation that was part of mining life in the high country areas of the State.

The Monarch Gold Battery Site is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts and evidence which will be able to provide significant information about the technological history of gold mining.

[Source: Victorian Heritage Register]

Group

Mining and Mineral Processing

Category

Battery/Crusher