Sebastopol is a village community in the north east part of the

Riverina The Riverina () is an agricultural list of regions in Australia, region of south-western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, a climate with significant seaso ...

, in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia. It is situated about 15 kilometres south of Temora and 19 kilometres north of

Junee Reefs Junee Reefs is a locality in the south east part of the Riverina, Australia. It is situated by road, about 19 kilometres north of Old Junee Old Junee is a village community in the central east part of the Riverina and situated about 8& ...

. The name is also applied to the surrounding rural locality, for statistical and postal purposes. The area now known as Sebastopol lies on the traditional lands of

Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...

people. It was named after

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

, the site of an important battle during the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

. Gold was mined there from . It was the first to be discovered of a line of gold mining locations that ran north-north-west, from Junee Reefs, through Sebastopol, Temora,

Reefton Reefton is a small town in the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast region of New Zealand, approximately northeast of Greymouth, New Zealand, Greymouth, in the Inangahua River valley. Ahaura is south-west of Reefton, Inangahua Junction is to ...

, and

Barmedman Barmedman is a rural village in the Bland Shire Council, Bland Shire in the New South Wales state of Australia, located approximately half-way between West Wyalong and Temora, New South Wales, Temora. Barmedman began as a service centre for gold- ...

, to

West Wyalong West Wyalong is the main town of the Bland Shire in the northern Riverina region of western New South Wales, Australia. In the 2021 Census, West Wyalong's population was 3,037. Located west of Sydney as well as being above sea level, it i ...

. The early days of the gold field were difficult; the closest police were at Morangorell, and water, carried from springs near Combaning, had to be purchased by the cask. The first large quartz reef mine on the field was the Morning Star, begun in 1869, which was also the most productive, recorded as producing 0.93 tonnes of gold. The other large mine was the Homeward Bound. Both of these mines were rich in gold at a relatively shallow depth, yielding around eight

ounces The ounce () is any of several different units of mass, weight, or volume and is derived almost unchanged from the , an Ancient Roman unit of measurement. The avoirdupois ounce (exactly ) is avoirdupois pound; this is the United States cus ...

of gold to the ton; more gold was recovered later by retreating the

tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...

from these mines. From 1895 to 1898, the

cyanide process Gold cyanidation (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur–Forrest process) is a hydrometallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore through conversion to a water-soluble coordination complex. It is the most commonly u ...

was used to recover 0.5 ounces of gold per ton from the tailings. After 1896, mining on the field declined to small-scale and intermittent operations, but some mining activity continued in the area into the first half of the 20th Century. The mines were long-lived enough for a mining village of around 500 people to form. It had three hotels, three stores and two butcher's shops. Sebastopol Post Office opened on 7 March 1870 and closed in 1973. Sebastopol had a school from 1871 to 1949. An Anglican church building remains in the locality some distance away from the old mining village, at a sub-locality once known as Bagdad; it is no longer used as a church, having been sold in 2016. There was also a school named Bagdad, from 1884 to 1912 and later from 1923 to 1948. Apart from some ruined buildings, little remains of the original mining village of Sebastopol. Near Sebastopol is the 248 hectare site of a 90 Mega-Watt

solar farm A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...

that became operational in December 2021. Image:StStephensChurchSebastopol.jpg, St Stephen's Church Sebastopol Image:RuinsatSebastopol.jpg, Ruins at Sebastopol

Notes and references

{{authority control Towns in the Riverina Towns in New South Wales Temora Shire Mining towns in New South Wales Ghost towns in New South Wales