Water Races

As she explained: “The key to all of them, the first and most important feature was the chimney [and fireplace]. The pattern of most single huts was usually the same, oblong with a hipped roof and the door at one end and the chimney beside it. It was handiest to have the chimney by the door where a man could bring the wood straight into the fire from his wood stack and could sit by the fire and still see outside. The furniture was a built-in bunk or bed, and a built-in table or two. Basin and bucket stood on a bench outside.”

Trading as Shaw Bros, the family quickly developed a variety of mining and business interests in Red Hill and surrounding areas, including a store, pastoral lease, mining operations and multiple water races with attached valuable water rights. Richard Shaw’s two sons hand dug Shaws Lake, otherwise known as Dicks dam, to store water for their mining and sluicing operations, and for selling on.

Mirroring the ebb and flow and mixed fortunes of the goldfield, they filed for bankruptcy in 1867, citing losses in farming, bad debts and a failing storekeeping business. They bounced back quickly, however, with William Shaw recorded in 1868 as owning a chemist, general store and boot and drapery store. In 1871, he purchased the Commercial Hotel in Barrys Reef, which was going through a quartz mining boom.

William sold the hotel in 1889, moving to Melbourne, but retained a strong connection with Blackwood. He is buried along with his wife in the Blackwood Cemetery. In 1944 the Shaw descendants generously gifted Shaw’s Lake, an area of 1.5 acres, to the Blackwood community, to be used as a reserve for public purposes.

Mineral springs and mountain air

Improved industrial working conditions and increasing leisure time for workers fed an already burgeoning tourism industry in Victoria. The movement for an 8-hour day had started in the Melbourne building industry in the 1850s and slowly washed through other industries. From the 1880s, Saturday half-holiday joined Sunday as leisure time for workers. Australia truly deserved its international reputation as ‘the workers’ paradise’ and they were ready to travel!

“The great elevation of Blackwood above sea level, its comparative proximity to the metropolis of the colony, its rugged mountain scenery and crisp, bracing atmosphere, combine to render it one of our finest health resorts.” (Department of Mines; Water Supply Report 1889)

Mining lingered on at Blackwood through the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, although on a much smaller scale. From the 1880s, Blackwood became a tourist destination. Coach buses brought day tourists from Kyneton and Trentham railway stations to Blackwood.  The Mineral Springs in particular were renowned for their health-giving waters. These were officially tested in 1867 and subsequently developed. Several years later one acre of land was set aside for the Mineral Springs Reserve. In 1933, the Reserve was extended to include an entrance and Avenue of Honour and in 1948 the Rip Van Winkle mine tailings were flattened to provide land for a caravan park. The addition of Shaws Lake to the Reserve further boosted tourism with swimming, fishing and scenic walks popular with visitors and locals.

Long time Blackwood resident Margot Hitchcock fondly remembers lazy afternoons spent at Shaws Lake: “When I was a child in the summertime we would sometimes walk up the hill from the track behind the Mineral Springs to Shaws Lake with my parents and later on with friends for a swim. I challenged myself to swim across the lake, but didn’t do that often as I found leeches on my legs when I got out.”

Shaws Lake is still much loved and used by locals and visitors.

The Blackwood Town interpretation signs were financed by the Blackwood Progress Association Inc.