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FORMER EUREKA LEAD GOLD SLUICING COMPANY PUMP SHED

Location

113 LOFVEN STREET NERRINA, BALLARAT CITY

Level

Heritage Inventory Site

Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The former Eureka Lead Gold Sluicing Company's pump shed site at 113 and 135 Lofven Street Nerrina is significant. The elements of significance include the primary components of the place, which are the corrugated iron pump shed, machinery foundations within and outside the shed, and all associated artefacts and archaeological deposits.

How is it significant?

The former Eureka Lead Gold Sluicing Company's pump shed is of historical significance to the City of Ballarat.

Why is it significant?

The former Eureka Lead Gold Sluicing Company pumping site is historically and technologically important as characteristic and well-preserved archaeological evidence of hydraulic sluicing technology involving a suction gas engine and producer plant. Evidence of the actual mining that was undertaken also survives nearby in the form of a large sluice pit. The hydraulic sluicing carried out at this site was associated with the revival of gold mining in Victoria in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Eureka Lead Gold Sluicing Company was the foremost mine of the Ballarat gold mining revival in at this time. Mining-related heritage is of crucial importance to the City of Ballarat because of the role gold played in the development of Ballarat as a city. (Criterion A & C).

The pump shed is significant in its own right as a rare and authentic industrial building associated with the operations of the Eureka Lead Gold Sluicing Company. The shed demonstrates the size and type of machinery being used for hydraulic sluicing during the 1930s, and is also illustrative of its former use as winding house for an underground mine. (Criteria B & C).

The place is of significance for its rarity as surviving evidence of mining activity in the Ballarat area, as most evidence of both the early alluvial mining and later reef mining, sluicing and dredging has been obliterated by modern development. It is the only site in the City of Ballarat where substantial gold mining production structures survive in their original position. It is one of a small number of places in Victoria that demonstrate the process of hydraulic sluicing and is believed to be the only remaining built fabric in Ballarat related to this important phase in Ballarat’s history. (Criteria B).

The place is of archaeological significance because it is associated with Ballarat’s gold mining history, is more than 75 years old, and has buried evidence which can be investigated using archaeological methods to produce a better understanding of a significant 1930s gold mining operation. Works around this building have exposed artefacts and buried features likely to contain deposits and artefacts. There is therefore significant potential for historical archaeological features, deposits or artefacts. (Criterion B &C).

The place and its history are also

Group

Mining and Mineral Processing