FORMER GOLDEN KING GOLD MINE BATTERY

What is significant?
The c1950 Golden King gold mine battery including: the ore crushing plant, the timber framed corrugated shed, the golden king shaft and associated machinery.

How is it significant?
The Golden King gold mine battery is historically, technically and archaeologically significant to the Shire of Nillumbik.

Why is it significant?
The Golden King gold mine battery is historically significant for its association with the gold mining history of the Yarrambat district and as a rare (or the only) working example of a well preserved traditional ore crushing plant, in situ, within the Melbourne Metropolitan area (Criteria A & B). The golden king gold mine battery is historically and technically significant as a rare example of an intact four head battery and is the only known surviving example of a battery produced by A Robinson's Soho foundry at Maryborough (Criteria B & D). The golden king gold mine battery is archaeologically significant for the shaft's potential to yield information about the gold mining history of the Yarrambat district (Criterion C).

MOLONEY, FORMER GOLDENCROWN BATTERY STUDY, 2000
The former Golden King battery plant is of regional heritage significance. It was erected at the North Oatlands Road Golden King mine site in 1941, having been removed, complete with battery shed, from an as yet unknown mine at Spargo Creek in central Victoria, and removed to the Yarrambat Heritage Museum, Yan Yean Road Yarrambat, where the mine was closed down.

The battery is of regional technical significance as: - a rare example of an intact four head battery in Victoria; for its association with A Robinson's Soho Foundry at Maryborough, and as the only known surviving example of a battery produced by this engineering firm; as the only gold battery surviving in the Melbourne district; as one of relatively few intact and operational batteries surviving in Victoria; and, most likely, as an example of a light early twentieth century prospecting battery; for its association with the important and innovative Australian engineering company, AH McDonald & Co, by means of the 30 horsepower diesel engine which powers the plant; as the only known example of a McDonald engine operating a gold battery in Victoria; and as a rare surviving example of a reasonably intact early twentieth century battery plant and shed.

The battery is of local historical significance as a surviving remnant of mining in Yarrambat, and in particular of quartz mining, which was undertaken in the district on a relatively small scale from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century; for its association with the locally important Clayton mining family; and for its association with an earlier mining venture believed to be at Spargo Creek, between Ballan and Daylesford. The battery is of local social significance to Yarrambat, where mining has been an important part of the fabric of community life from the 1930s. The initiative of the Yarrambat community in acquiring and reconstructing the plant is expressive of this significance.

Group

Mining and Mineral Processing

Category

Gold Mining Site