Beaconsfield Gold - Australia's Richest Gold Resource.

High Grade, Low Cost Gold Producer

Grubb Shaft
Gold & Heritage Museum


Open Daily from 10.00am - 4.00pm

In 1877 the Dally brothers found that there was much more to Tasmania's Tamar Valley than its beautiful river and scenery. Their dicovery of gold led to the famous Tasman Reef where gold was extracted from 1877-1914.

The Grubb Shaft Gold & Heritage Museum has occupied a site adjacent to the Beaconsfield gold mine since 1982. Assistance and encouragement from the AMAX Corporation allowed the museum committee to reconstruct part of the old ruins for display space which opened to the public in 1984.

 


1905 Beaconsfield mine facades now in use for Grubb Shaft Museum and the new gold mine.
  • Explore the Grubb Shaft mine, iron smelter, water wheel and battery.
  • Discover what it was really like to live as a miner.
  • Working models really bring our displays to life. View our impressive collection of steam-engines and social displays in our new building.

The Beaconsfield gold mine proved to be the most profitable in the area producing a yield of 26 tonnes and reaching a depth of 457 metres in 1914. Today Hart Shaft is being reopened under a joint partnership and preparations are well underway for ore extraction.

* Only 30 minutes from Launceston
* Superb working exhibits
* One of Tasmania's largest collections of memorabilia mining artifacts and machinery
* "Hide and Seek" fun for the kids

Location :
West Street, Beaconsfield.

Admission :
Adults $9.00,
Pensioners and Students : $7.00,
Children 5 - 17 years : $4.00
(Must be accompanied by an adult).
Children under 5 years - Free of charge
Family ticket (2 adults & 2 children U16) : $24.00

Phone : (03) 6383 1473,
Fax : (03) 6383 6384



Restoration of the Grubb Shaft engine house in 1982


A new use for a heritage ruin - 1998

Today the museum attracts some 18,000 visitors per year. The broad range of exhibits in the complex attracts visitors of all ages from many parts of the world.



New doors for the Hart engine house - 1997.
The timber is from old pump rods.


Salvage of pitch pine pump rod timber.

 





A welcome from "Tassie Jack"



Reception



Visitors enjoying one of the heritage displays


1862 stamp battery with the 1997 head frame
in the background

Scale model of 1872 local iron smelter.



Flowery Gully school 1892 set up near the Museum


The old and the new

PRESS RELEASE July 1998.

The Beaconsfield Mine Joint Venture has recovered a set of massive mine pumps from the bottom of the reinstated Hart Shaft. Installed in 1905 and under water since 1914, these spectacular examples of 1900s mine technology are probably unique in the world.

Recovered with difficulty and care, these pumps have been given by the Beaconsfield Mine Joint Venture Company to the adjacent Grubb Shaft Gold & Heritage Museum where they will become a star exhibit.

The old Tasmania mine at Beaconsfield was famous for the big pumpers needed to keep the working free of the flooding from a large underground aquifer. Three pumper units were used, one in Hart Shaft and two in Grubb Shaft. They were capable of lifting 8 million gallons (35.4 million litres) from depths of up to 1500 feet (457m) every 24 hours. Power was provided by enormous horizontal compound steam engines made by the Hathorn Davey Co. of Leeds, England in 1904. Each engine moved two pump rods down the mine shaft and each rod worked three pumps, moving water to the surface in three lifts or stages. The total weight of the six pump rods and 18 pumps is estimated to have been 1400 tonnes.



Two sets of pump rod tops in ruined Grubb Shaft.
Each rod weighs 200 tonnes and is 454m long


Inlet valve and "H" piece of 'Cornish' pump

For more details of the Grubb Shaft Gold & Heritage Museum refer to www.wtc.tas.gov.au

For more information contact Sharon Verhulst, Grubb Shaft Gold & Heritage Museum

Phone : (03) 6383 1473, Fax : (03) 6383 6384


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