Windmill Hill Coy Gold Mining Company 1857-1920

tinpan

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Sep 4, 2004
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In 1857 in Long Gully the first public mining company was formed. Named at first the Bendigo Quartz Mining Company and when changed to Windmill HIll Coy Gold Mining Company.Due to the cost of digging hard rock deep mines to get the reef gold many of the more successful gold claim miners joined forces to raise the large amounts of money required to start a deep mine.Machinery and plant was often shipped from other countries USA, Germany and From Cornish coal mines in the UK.This was a great cost.Most of the first hard mines produced vast wealth for those tho owned them but the poor miners who worked in them were paid little.

Yesterday i went to a disused mine site of the Windmill HIll Coy shaft which was later called the Stanford Shaft.The Company owned about a dozen gold mines on this hill and nearly 1 million ozs of gold was mined .The resent fires here have cleared huge areas and reveiled a few disguard pits and remains of buildings like mine office, pump sheds and engine rooms.

Between the west side of Dangerous HIll across St Just Point in the gully below there was about 500 mines worked.Some say this area is one of the largest amounts of deep gold mine in small area in world.

Spent most of the day digging around the old building and a couple of shallow waste pits and came home with quite a few keepers. i feel these are the best finds of rather grand weekend.

i found about the largest silver coin i ever found a double crown i think and in great condition but real black tho.A local glass beer bot5tle circa 1890's and a pot lid.Due to the size of pic it will take a bit of time to download them all. old photo of mine from the 1930's

tinpan
 

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Glad you came through the fire alright TP, hope the finds will be a bright side of that disaster.
 

bottle and old photo of mine
 

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Wow, that fire did get close! Good thing the wind was going the other way?
 

Double Florin.
 

Very cool finds Tinny. Those pot lids are really neat. Thanks for the photos of the mill site and the older photos ...what a difference a hundred years makes. Glad to see you are safe and sound.
 

Anchovy paste on toast... :icon_pale:
Nice finds :thumbsup:
Randy
 

That town looks a lot like my home town, only it was lead that was mined here, not gold.
Nice finds!!!
 

Great finds......but the greatest thing about the story is that you are okay, and were spared.
Keep posting, with the good pics. Much enjoyment looking and reading. :thumbsup:
 

Great to know you are out of danger and able to put a positive spin on the fires. Nice finds and I wish you luck getting into those old mine areas. HH, Mike
 

Glad your O.K.,those fires sure make it nice to hunt afterward!!They expose things you never knew were there!!!
 

Gypsy Heart said:
Very cool finds Tinny. Those pot lids are really neat. Thanks for the photos of the mill site and the older photos ...what a difference a hundred years makes. Glad to see you are safe and sound.
thanks Kirsty i can take a photo from the angle the old photo was taken.Those old building still stand on the highway below. the butcher shop was once a taven called the Fire brigade hotel and is a music instrument shop today and the other buliding was the telegraf and post office and just empty these days.

tinpan
 

Great pictures you put up. Good post, and it's good to see a positive spin on the fires. :thumbsup:
 

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