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HENRY'S NO.1 MILL
LocationOFF MOUNT SABINE RD AND WEST BARWON TRACK BARRAMUNGA, COLAC-OTWAY SHIRE LevelHeritage Inventory Site |
Statement of Significance
What is significant? [Source: Victorian Heritage Register]
Henry’s No.1 Mill was the largest sawmill in the eastern Otways, operating from 1904-1927. The mill settlement included a boarding house, bakery, store, billiard room, post office and school, with huts for single men and cottages for families. The mill site extends in a clearing along the West Barwon river, and features intact tramway formations, extensive scatters of domestic debris, mature exotic trees, and numerous foundations of industrial and residential buildings.
How is it significant?
Henry’s No.1 Mill is of historical and archaeological significance to the State of Victoria.
Why is it significant?
Henry’s No.1 Mill is historically important as a characteristic example of a large, isolated sawmill with associated settlement. Sawmilling sites are important to Victoria for their role in providing a vast range of timber products for use in domestic, commercial and industrial contexts. Henry’s No.1 Mill was a long-established bush mill (23 years), supplying timber to centres throughout western Victoria, including Colac, Geelong, Hamilton and the Ballarat goldfields. It was associated with a major figure in the Victorian sawmilling industry, W. R. Henry.
Henry’s No.1 Mill is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts and evidence which will be able to provide significant information about the technological history of sawmilling, and the cultural history of sawmilling settlements.
Group
Forestry and Timber Industry
Category
Mill settlement