SEVEN HILLS ESTATE FIELD TILE DRAINAGE SYSTEM

The Seven Hills Estate Field Tile Drainage System site comprises a paddock which has been used as pastoral land from 1838 during the squatting and Creswick gold-rush period, and has been subject to cultivation from 1901. The significant elements of the site are primarily the subsurface tile drainage system, which dates to the period between November 1901 and February 1924. This place represents the potential for portions of an in situ tile drainage system to be extant, as well as pastoral- and farming-related archaeological features and deposits.

The Seven Hills Estate Field Tile Drainage System site is of local historical, archaeological, and representative significance.

This Seven Hills Estate Field Tile Drainage System provides a sample of a system which was increasingly installed in waterlogged paddocks across not only Victoria, but across Australia from the 1890s onwards. This evidences a clear association with the way farmers and pastoralists were transforming their land with new drainage technologies in the local area to continue the productive use of the land for farming. As the tile drainage system is primarily subsurface in nature, it has the potential to yield information about the methods utilised in the construction of such technology by Creswick farmers during the early-1900s. While it is unclear as to what remains of the system in a subsurface context, it has the potential to provide details on the principal characteristics found in the local implementation and use of a technology imported from the Ohio flatlands of America. As such, this site is significant at a local level within the Creswick region.