COHUNA HEADWORKS

The site is a complex of water regulation infrastructure constructed circa 1881, including two headworks locations (Old Cohuna Headworks and New Cohuna Headworks), located on the bank of the Murray River and connected to a series of irrigation channels and is related to water management, pastoral and/or agricultural activity in the Gunbower region.

Cohuna Headworks is of local historical and archaeological significance.

Cohuna Headworks played an important role in the supply of water to Gunbower Island and surrounds. The site is significant to the development of water infrastructure in the region and across Victoria. The site demonstrates the importance of water and water management practices to Victorian farming areas in the region during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Cohuna Headworks has the potential to yield further information on the irrigation landscape and history of water supply in the Gunbower Region and Victoria. The site (in particular, immediately within and surrounding the New Cohuna Headworks location) is considered of high archaeological potential to reveal further information about the construction through dislodged components, and habitation by those who were associated with the headworks operations which may be buried in the surrounding earth.