We have developed a draft Management Plan for the historic Victoria Hill Diggings Reserve located at 40-56 Marong Road, Ironbark which is now available for comment.

Victoria Hill Diggings Reserve is Crown Land and listed on the Victorian Heritage Register because of its historical, archaeological and scientific heritage significance to the State of Victoria.

The heritage listing covers the entire reserve, including all above-ground structures, granite and brick mining machinery foundations, concrete battery foundations and stamping machinery, mullock heaps, open cut and surface workings and all archaeological deposits and artefacts.

The City of Greater Bendigo is the Land Administrator for the reserve and the Draft Victoria Hill Management Plan sets out to:

1. Understand built and non-built assets (register, condition, etc)
2. Define current service levels for the reserve
3. Identify gaps and improvement in activities.

In addition to setting out the day to day operations and maintenance levels for the reserve, the draft Management Plan has also identified opportunities for improvement at the site relating to poor profile/visability, accessibility, vandalism, erosion and safety to increase usage and reduce risks.

• Victoria Hill lies at the heart of Bendigo's historical status as the world's richest and deepest gold field.
• The reserve features open cuts (Ballerstedt’s, Rae’s and Adventure & Advance), buried deep mine shafts (including Lansell’s 180, 3361 feet deep; Victoria Quartz, 4613 feet deep, and Great Central Victoria, 2385 feet deep), mining machinery (including 20-head of stamps), machinery foundations (including engine beds at Lansell’s 180 mine), and mullock heaps.
• During its 97 years of operation, the Victoria Hill mine yielded about $8 billion worth of gold in today’s values and was the deepest mine in the world at 4,613 feet.
• The Victoria Hill mine appeared on Australia’s first pound note printed in 1913.