Library Patchly Gold
Library Patchly Gold

Historic activity · Victoria

Victoria Historic Workings

Victoria former mining features: shafts, surface workings and diggings.

What it shows

Every former mining feature mapped on Victorian Crown land, from the state's Former Mines and Quarries Project. It is the most complete picture of where Victorians actually dug that exists anywhere in Australia. Most of it was found by running detection over airborne survey data rather than by copying old maps, which means it includes tens of thousands of small diggings that were never recorded anywhere. Shafts and surface workings dominate, and surface workings are the interesting ones: shallow ground worked by hand, by people who had no metal detector. Filter by what was done to the ground to separate underground workings from surface diggings, alluvial ground and waste heaps. It covers Crown land only, and features found automatically can be wrong, so treat it as where to look. Look is the operative word: many old workings are archaeological sites protected under the Heritage Act 2017, and disturbing one or removing objects from it is an offence that a Miner's Right does not cover.

Before you rely on it

Old workings are a hazard: shafts can be open, unfenced or hidden by scrub. They are also protected. Many are archaeological sites under the Heritage Act 2017, where disturbing the site or taking objects from it is an offence, and a Miner's Right does not cover that. Many features here were detected automatically from ground survey data and some are false positives, so treat each as a lead to check rather than a fact. It covers Crown land only, so private land has gaps.

Putting this on your map

Taking a layer from the Library onto a stack, and tuning how it draws, is a short guided tour on your own map.

How do I add map layers to Patchly?

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