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HO84 - Melton Weir, over Toolern Creek

Other Names

Melton Reserve Causeway , Nixon Street Melton (over Toolern Creek)

Location

Nixon Street MELTON, Melton Shire

File Number

227

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

[1/1]
Former Melton Weir

Statement of Significance

The McKenzie Street Weir and Ford over Toolern Creek, built 1890, and now used only as a road causeway, is historically significant at the LOCAL level (AHC D2, B2). It represented the realisation of a local idea to mitigate the particularly low rainfall of the Melton district, and was also the second and last attempt to provide a dependable supply of healthy drinking water in the town by means of a major public engineering work. The idea for the weir appears to have originated in an idea of Shire Secretary Stewart in 1886 to build weirs where watercourses required to be bridged. The Council responded positively to the idea of combining bridges with dams, 'a dry district like this'.

While, like all other early public works attempted, the Weir does not appear to have been successful in achieving its objectives, and the town was essentially dependent on bore and tank water until the provision of reticulated water from the Djerriwarrh Dam in 1963.

The weir, now used only as a road, stands as a substantial testament to the problem of water in Melton, and a local attempted resolution of the problem.

Overall, the McKenzie Street Weir and Ford over Toolern Creek is of LOCAL heritage significance.

Group

Utilities - Water