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COLBINABBIN COMMUNITY WELL

Location TOEDTBERG ROAD AND TWO CHAIN ROAD COLBINABBIN, CAMPASPE SHIRE File Number HER/2000/000269 Level Registered

[1/3] COLBINABBIN COMMUNITY WELL [2/3] 1 colbinabbin community well [3/3] colbinabbin community well

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The Colbinabbin Community Well consists of a raised earth-filled platform retained by notched logs along with remains of decking. Angled above the well is a whip pole. Nearby are remnants of a tank stand. The whips iron pulley wheels have recently been removed from the site. Knowledge and understanding of the well comes mainly from the shared memories of the Colbinabbin community. Local residents place the wells construction to drought conditions during the 1860s and 1870s and recall two phases of use. The first when buckets were drawn by a haulage device known as a whip, a simple device consisting of a long rope attached to a horse and run down the shaft via a pulley attached to a long pole. As the horse was led away from the hole the bucket was raised. Community use of the well can be traced back to at least 1893 when the Shire of Waranga acquired the well and a small parcel of land surrounding it. Local residents, usually during drought times, purchased water from the well. By the 1920s whip haulage had been abandoned and water was being pumped from the well by an internal combustion engine. The well collapsed in the 1950s and was abandoned.

How is it significant?
The Colbinabbin Community Well is of historical and technological significance to the State of Victoria.

Why is it significant?
The Colbinabbin Community Well is historically significant as a rare example of a once plentiful type. Wells, soaks, tanks and dams were common water supply infrastructure for early settlers. The survival of what was probably the wells first form of water hauling technology, the whip pole, provides the place with a remarkable integrity. Despite the whip being replaced by pump and engine, it was not removed.

The Colbinabbin Community Well is of technological significance mainly due to the survival of a relatively well preserved hauling whip. There are only two other recorded examples of early whips surviving in Victoria, both of which are associated with gold mining shafts. The Colbinabbin whip appears to be the oldest and one of the best surviving illustrations of a technology that was once prevalent throughout Victoria.