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ANDERSONS MILL

Other Name

Anderson's Mill

Location

9 ALICE STREET SMEATON, HEPBURN SHIRE

Level

Heritage Inventory Site

Statement of Significance

Anderson's Mill and Water Wheel, Smeaton, comprises a huge bluestone mill building, water wheel, bluestone office, chimney and various other associated structures, built for the Anderson brothers from 1861 onwards to service Creswick's prospering agricultural district. It is an excellent example of Georgian inspired colonial industrial design.

The 28-foot diameter water wheel, built by Ballarat engineering firm Hunt and Opie, is fed by a mill race about 900 metres long which commences at a finely crafted bluestone weir on birch creek. The mill's initial prosperity was short-lived as Victoria's drier northern areas proved more effective for wheat growers and wheat growing activity in Smeaton and surrounding areas declined. Changes in technology, consumer tastes and the wide annual variations in wheat production made it difficult for small scale, local millers to obtain regular supplies of wheat.

One of the second generation, David Anderson, tried to resist this relentless development by installing new plant in 1895. The mill survived another sixty years as a flour and oatmeal mill before it closed in the late 1950s. The Anderson's mill complex has been purchased by the state government of Victoria as a bicentennial project and is now under the management of the Department of Conservation Forests and Lands.

[Source: Victorian Heritage Register]

Group