HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Hillgrove is a Northern Tablelands historic goldmining town, now a village with a population of about 95. The village lies about 30 km east of
Armidale Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 23,967 as of the 2021 census. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands reg ...
and 5 km south of the Waterfall Way, at an elevation of 1,000 m on a
granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...
above Bakers Creek, near the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. It lies in
Sandon County Sandon County is one of the 141 cadastral divisions of New South Wales. It is centred on Armidale, and also includes Uralla. Sandon County was named in honour of Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, Dudley Ryder, First Earl of Harrowby and Visc ...
, part of the
Armidale Regional Council The Armidale Region is a local government area in the New England and Northern Tablelands regions of New South Wales, Australia. This area was formed in 2016 from the merger of the Armidale Dumaresq Shire with the surrounding Guyra Shire. T ...
local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...
. Hillgrove was one of the major
gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
fields in New South Wales, with a recorded production of over 15,000 kg of gold. It has also been a significant producer of antimony (14,700 tons) and
tungsten Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...
(at least 2,000 tons of
scheelite Scheelite is a calcium tungstate mineral with the chemical formula Ca W O4. It is an important ore of tungsten (wolfram). Scheelite is originally named after Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–1786). Well-formed crystals are sought ...
).


History


1800s

The town was first known as ''Eleanora Township'', named after the
antimony Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
mine that for nearly a decade after 1876 was the sole reason for its existence. The name ''Hillgrove'' was given to the town in 1888. Although some alluvial gold was discovered in Bakers Creek gorge as early as 1857, it was not until antimony was discovered that important mining was undertaken in the late 1870s. The main shaft in Bakers Creek was sunk 610 metres below the surface. Tramways operated by a steam-powered winding engine pulled the trams up and down the precipitous incline to the Bakers Creek mines.Donald, J.Kay, Exploring the North Coast and New England, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1978, The town of Hillgrove was established in 1884 and grew rapidly during the 1880s and 1890s due to the expanding production of the mining companies. Hillgrove Post Office opened on 1 June 1884 and closed in 1979. A ''Hillgrove West'' Post Office opened in 1890, was renamed ''Metz'' in 1896 and closed in 1922. At its peak in about 1898, the town's population was close to 3,000, similar to that of Armidale. Hillgrove then had four churches, six hotels, two schools, a school of arts, a hospital, several banks, a stock exchange, a court house, police station, a recreation ground, a technical college, debating society, a temperance league and a cordial factory. The town also printed its own local paper, the ''Hillgrove Guardian''. In 1895 it became the first town in Australia to be supplied with power by means of
hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...
which operated from Gara Gorge to the west.


1900s

Hillgrove began to decline after 1900. The difficulties and expense of its deep underground workings led investors and miners to seek more profitable ventures elsewhere. Gold finds were exhausted and antimony prices declined by the 1920s, leading to mining companies shutting down. In all, the Eleanora and Bakers Creek Mines had produced 15,600 kg of gold. Shortly afterwards, most of the town's buildings were dismantled and relocated to Armidale and other centres. By 1933 there were just 241 residents left. Goldmining briefly resumed between 1937 and 1940. However, it was the Damned If I Know Mine, a small operation which extracted tungsten ore between the late 1930s and the late 1950s, which turned a large profit, particularly during World War II when tungsten's steel-strengthening capacity was in great demand. Antimony mining came into its own in 1969 and was mined along with gold, thus sustaining the village.


2000s

In March 2004, the Hillgrove Gold Project near Armidale was purchased by Straits Resources, who made development plans for the area. The mine closed for months in 2009, due to global price fluctuations. It was later owned by Meridian Capital of Hong Kong, but in December 2015 it closed again, largely due to a fall in antimony prices from $8,000 to $5,000 a tonne.


Heritage

The post office and school are the only substantial buildings which remain. The school buildings (1897) are now used to house the Hillgrove Rural Life and Industry Museum. Hillgrove Goldmining Area and the Antimony Mine on Stockton Road have been placed on the
Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heri ...
.Aussie Heritage
/ref>


Attractions

Long Point campground is 18 km south of Hillgrove in the wilderness of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. There are two posted walking tracks through dry rainforest and around the rim of the gorge offering good views over the Chandler and Macleay River systems. The overnight Chandler River Walk to Wollomombi starts here. Some rare '' Eucalyptus michaeliana'' (Hillgrove Gum) trees may be seen growing along the Long Point Road. These trees have a distinctive, mottled, greenish trunk with peeling yellow-brown bark (like jigsaw puzzle pieces). Its range is restricted to Mount Barney National Park in
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
and in NSW to the
Wyong Wyong () is a town on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately South-South-West of Newcastle and North-North-East of the state capital Sydney. Established in , it is one of the two administrative centres fo ...
and Hillgrove areas. Bakers Creek Falls lookout is about 1.5 km from the Waterfall Way and provides views of the commencement of the Bakers Creek Gorge. Metz, which was known as West Hillgrove, is situated on the western side of the Bakers Creek gorge from Hillgrove and has a scenic viewing platform at Metz Gorge. The good panorama here makes it possible to see some relics of the old Bakers Creek Mine at the bottom of the gorge, 490 m below Hillgrove. The shaft was sunk a further 610 m below the surface, almost to sea-level.


See also

*
Australian gold rushes During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in History of Australia, Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the Colo ...


Notes

{{Reflist


References

*"Hillgrove: A Photographic Study of a New South Wales Mining Town, 1893-1912" by Graham Wilson and Bruce Caddy; printed by Armidale and District Historical Society, 1996


External links


Northern Rivers Geology Blog - Hillgrove
Mining towns in New South Wales Towns in New England (New South Wales) Gold mines in New South Wales Underground mines in Australia