Cantwell Property Castlemaine has recently listed a unique property featuring a relic from the region’s goldfields past – the ruins of the Mopoke Gully Water Wheel circa 1887.
Local history buffs are calling on the state government to consider purchasing the Campbells Creek property to potentially be added to the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park and retained for future generations.
Listed by the National Trust and registered by Victorian Heritage as a Heritage Inventory Site, the site is historically and scientifically important to the state of Victoria and its development from the goldfields and as an example of the innovative technology of the day.
Bendigo & Fryers Co built the Mopoke Gully Waterwheel and the Garfield Waterwheel near Chewton in 1887. The purpose of the Mopoke Gully Waterwheel was to power the quartz-crunching battery with its 60ft diameter waterwheel.
The wheel mounted on large stone foundations was set into the hill and set in motion by a supply of water located by a nearby water race.
Bendigo & Fryers Co operated the waterwheel from 1887 to 1900.
Cantwell Property sales associate Rory Farley is handling the sale of the block of land, which is just over two acres in size (8534sqm) and zoned farming.
Mr Farley said ideally the vendor would love to see the land returned to public hands.
“The vendor would like to see it purchased by the state government and preserved for future generations being a significant piece of our goldfields past,” he said.
Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards confirmed she had been made aware of the impending sale of the property and had previously raised the issue with Minister for Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio to query whether the property could be purchased and potentially added to the heritage park.
Ms Edwards told the Express she had written to the minister again alerting her that the property had now gone on the market.
The site includes two massive stone abutments set into the side of a hill. There are substantially intact and include holding down bolts for the axle housing. On the west side of the abutments is a large stone retained loading ramp.
Below the ramp is a levelled floor containing a roughly square depression belonging to a decayed stamper stump.
An underground stone-lined culvert drains from the base of the waterwheel pit. There is also a small intact tailing dump in the gully below the abutments. Two water races are clearly visible above the abutments about 10 metres apart. The mine workings located above the battery are characteristic of this era.
Expressions of interest in the property are welcomed and close at 5pm this Friday October 21.
