Quartz Roasting Pits Complex
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| Quartz Roasting Pits Complex | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Heritage boundaries | |
| Location | 10km north of Hill End, Mid-Western Regional Council, New South Wales, Australia |
| Coordinates | 32°57′26″S 149°25′31″E / 32.9573°S 149.4252°E |
| Built | 1854–1855 |
| Owner | Office of Environment and Heritage |
| Official name | Quartz Roasting Pits Complex; Cornish Roasting Pits |
| Type | state heritage (archaeological-terrestrial) |
| Designated | 2 April 1999 |
| Reference no. | 1006 |
| Type | Quartz roasting kiln |
| Category | Mining and Mineral Processing |
  Location of Quartz Roasting Pits Complex in New South Wales  Quartz Roasting Pits Complex (Australia) | |
Quartz Roasting Pits Complex is a heritage-listed quartz roasting kiln located 10 km north of Hill End, Mid-Western Regional Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1854 to 1855. It is also known as Cornish Roasting Pits. The property is owned by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.[1]
The Hill End Quartz Roasting Pits Complex was established by the Colonial Gold Mining Company in 1855, on the traditional land of the Wiradjuri people, to provide gold extraction facilities for those working claims on the Tambaroora and Hill End goldfields. Although at this time alluvial mining was the primary method of gold recovery, the Tambaroora fields also supported the earliest attempts at reef mining in Australia, over fifteen years before the reef mining boom of the 1870s. The Quartz Roasting Pits Complex is one of the oldest goldrush sites in Australia and represents one of the first attempts to process gold bearing ore. It also represents an unusual technological solution to the problems initially experienced in extracting payable gold from the quartz reefs, in its development of the earliest form of quartz firing technology in Australia. With kilns for roasting gold bearing quartz, a sophisticated battery and dam system for crushing and washing the ore and houses for workers, the Complex provides tangible evidence of technological, social and domestic relationships during this very early stage of Australia's goldmining history. Gold bearing quartz was brought to the Complex from surrounding mines and roasted to make it easier to crush (a relatively unusual process) and then crushed in a steam powered battery. Gold was then extracted from the powdered ore through a process of sieving and washing.[1]
Despite its impressive technological achievements, the operation, managed and probably designed by Alfred Spence, was short-lived, closing in 1856, only eighteen months after it opened. This may have been partly due to the fact that the primitive roasting techniques employed hampered the gold extraction process. It may also have been due to the lack of gold in the reefs of the surrounding area, which were not fully tested before the Complex was established.[1]
Since 1856, no major development has occurred on the site with the land being used for grazing, as part of Alpha Station. Ownership was transferred to National Parks and Wildlife in 1967. Limited archaeological excavations were undertaken by the University of Sydney in 1975 and partial reconstruction of the battery and roasting pits in 1977.[1]
Following the reassessment of the site in April 1997, the site is being stabilised and new interpretative signage prepared for its presentation to the public.[1]
Description
The Roasting Pits Complex is located approximately 10 km north of Hill End township and approximately 2.5 km north of Valentine's Mine which acted as the main source of auriferous quartz. It sits within a small gently sloping valley, straddling a shallow watercourse. The site comprises a pair of kilns, a battery building which housed ore crushing machinery, a dam and the remains of two houses where the manager and various workers lived while the site was in operation. The Battery and Roasting Pits form the visual focus of the site, as they would have in the 1850s. From this point, all the other structures with the exception of the Dam, are largely obscured by vegetation. When the site was in operation however, the landscape would have been barren, with a clear view of mining activities in the surrounding hills. This harsh cultural landscape is still evident on close examination although its general sense has been diminished somewhat by the later plant growth.[1]
It is likely, given the short history of the Complex's operation, that all of the substantial structures on the site were built at about the same time in c. 1855. They would have suffered some impact upon the closure of the operation as equipment was salvaged, scavenged and removed from the site. Apart from grazing and cultivation, no significant later use of the site is known.[1]
The Roasting Pits are a two chamber kiln structure set on the hill upslope of the Battery. The Pits are composed of hard sedimentary stone, predominantly metamorphosed shale and greywacke. The kiln contains two conical pits that open from the top and taper sharply to ground level at the front (downslope). Each pit is built in front of an artificial embankment that joins the hill contour but drops sharply on both sides.[1]
The Battery sits on the valley floor about 20m below the Roasting Pits. It was here that the ore was crushed after roasting. The placement of the Battery on Fighting Ground Creek provided an area for tailings run off and access to a ready supply of water which was fed from the Dam further upstream. Locating it directly below the Roasting Pits also assisted the movement of the roasted ore from one stage of the extraction process to the next. The Battery is a large structure containing two main spaces and a solid stone platform containing several voids or spaces for machinery. It is oriented approximately north-south along its long axis, roughly parallel to the creek bank and across the slope leading down from the Roasting Pits. The western side of the building is cut into the slope, while the eastern is built onto the flat creek terrace.[1]
Other features are scattered throughout the surrounding bush including house remains and a large earth dam to the north-east of the battery.[1]
The site was reported to have high archaeological potential as at 29 August 1997.[1]
The ruins retain their integrity.[1]
