Miners' Cottages

The Australian goldrushes were part of a series of rushes which occurred around the periphery of the Pacific and Indian Ocean from the mid-nineteenth century that transformed the international banking system and bankrolled colonial expansion, world trade, shipping and manufacturing. The central goldfields of Victoria became a key colony of the British Empire because of the wealth derived from gold. The pattern of globalization and immigration marked across the colonial landscape of Victoria is most evident by the distribution of the small domestic miners' cottages. The miner's cottage belongs to a vernacular typology that despite regional differences can be linked to specific gold mining reefs, quartz and alluvial goldfields as well as different migrant groups, who incorporated their traditional building technologies in the construction of their homes.

The evolution of the central Victorian goldfields is inextricably linked to the way in which Britain had annexed territory in Australia as terra nullius, the subsequent dispossession of the Indigenous population and the manner in which the colonial government managed access to Crown Land through the issue of a range of leases. It heralded a new grammar of law, mapping of spaces by which land property rights were expressed, gold licensing system was implemented and the 'Miners Rights' introduced. The rights afforded to miners under the "Miners Rights' and successive related Acts were the single most influential government measure that changed the face of the central Victorian landscape. The provision of cheap public land on which to build created levels of working class home ownership in mining areas that was unmatched elsewhere in the world. It led to the construction of thousands of miners cottages.

These factors in conjunction with the simultaneous juxtaposition of the gold rush coming at the time of immense social upheaval in Europe led to an unprecedented long distance migration of family groups. The most defining characteristic element of the central Victorian goldfields is the highly domesticated nature of the mining cultural landscape. The miner's cottage became a major feature of the built landscape of Central Victoria. The greatest agent for determining the incidence of these miners' cottages is geology and landscape. Each gold rush area led to different responses to the establishment of shelter and construction of miner's cottages.

The miners' cottages located in Long Gully and Ironbark are associated with some of the earliest quartz mines in Bendigo. They were built by both German and Cornish miners, many of them are exceedingly small in scale. Many of the German-influenced cottages have pise or mud brick components, while the Cornish cottages were often made of random stone walls or incorporate stone walling. Often the cottages are a composite structure, a mixture of timber, stone, brick and pise and have been continually adapted with minor changes over the years. They have a high level of integrity although many massive chimneys have been removed and extensions added in later years. The majority of cottages appear to have been erected in the mid-1860s and 1870s on Miners Residency Areas by miners themselves. They were built on Crown Land beside company mines prior to the survey of roads and seldom have a formal alignment with later street patterns. Additions that incorporate fashionable contemporary architectural detailing are small in scale and characteristically correspond to periods of prosperity, when mining work was stable. The cottages cluster around the upper contours of the slopes near gullies and water supplies and have a relationship to each other that reflects social and family ties. 

The collection of miners' cottages of the Long Gully, Ironbark, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas have historic, architectural, aesthetic, scientific and social significance at a local level to the City of Bendigo. (Criteria A, B, C, D, E) 

As noted in the assessment against HERCON criteria.

 

1) The miners' cottages of the Long Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas are historically significant as the homes of the working class miners who serviced some of the wealthiest and deep quartz mines of Bendigo and Eastern Australia as both waged miners and Tribute miners. 

2) The miners' cottages are representative of the diverse range of miners' cottages including examples of the typical Cornish vernacular long house built by early emigrant Cornish, who formed a significant ethnic group of miners in the area. They demonstrate the way in which design, fabric and decorative embellishments reflected the evolving status of the owners as immigrant miners. 

3) The miners' cottages provide an important historic insight into the domestic lives and typical homes of Cornish and German miners, some of whom worked in the related trades as blacksmiths, engine drivers, carriers and mine engineers.

 

1) The miners' cottages of the Long Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas are associated with one of the unique features of the Victorian goldfields- the Miners Residency Area, which allowed the development of unregulated settlement on Crown land amongst mining sites. Many cottages are still intact, and provide a rare record of the home occupiers in the Ironbark Hill area during the period, 1866-1882, listing their occupations as miners or associated jobs such as carter, engine driver, blacksmith and mine manager. 

2) The miners' cottages and their large gardens in Moonta area are self-made community housing that resulted from adverse possession of Crown Land at the time of the 1890s depression. The cottages belong to a group of increasingly rare structures that show a combined use of timber weatherboards and pise, rammed earth construction techniques, the mud coming from the nearby creek. Groups of mud adobe and pise rammed earth dwellings associated with the German community were once a common feature on the Bendigo goldfields and in the former Long Gully Creek area, but are now becoming increasingly rare.

3) The miners' cottages form an important visual element in the cultural landscape of Ironbark and Long Gully, They clearly tells the story of the early alluvial, puddling and deep quartz company mining and workings of the tailings in Bendigo from the 1850s through to early 1950s. 

 

The miners' cottages the Long Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas are associated with extensive archival materials, including but not restricted to the Quarterly Reports of the Mining Surveyors and Registrars, 1863-91, detailed social demographic information since 1861 particularly in Bendigo and Ballarat goldfields, scholarly research and publications as well as contemporary journals and diaries. 

 

 

1) The miners' cottages of the Long Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas are an excellent representative example of the miner's cottage, particularly associated with German and Cornish miners of Long Gully and Ironbark Hill. 

2) The miners' cottages at numbers 19, 21, 25 and 24 Lazarus Street are excellent representative examples of miner's cottages particularly associated with the influence of the German community, who worked nearby on the gold mining works along Long Gully, Derwent and Sparrowhawk Gullies, where they built most of their building from locally made mud bricks and pise. All miners' cottages in the Moonta precinct are significant features and are an excellent architectural record of some of the earliest types and designs of miners' cottage. The two former weatherboard and timber cottages at 7 and 9 Harvey Street are significant as highly intact mid 19th century miners cottages erected on Miners Residency Areas, which were retained on Crown Land until the 21st century.

3) The miners' cottages display a level of intactness and authenticity in terms of their architectural character, form and scale that demonstrates the principle characteristics of cottages, built by unemployed miners and sustenance workers, during the Depression years of 1890s and 1930s. 

4) The miners' cottages of the Long Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark Hill former mining areas have aesthetic significance as they illustrates the rich diversity of a working class miners cottages, a key feature of the Victorian 19th century goldfields. The size, shape and design of miners' cottages provide a historical and architectural record of a vernacular class of buildings.