Mill Hoist Floor

The hoist floor of the Jembaicumbene Steam Flour Mills is one of four levels inside a building that Charles Dransfield constructed in 1859 from two materials sourced directly from the land around it: locally manufactured brick and granite quarried on the farm. The massive hardwood beams framing the interior were cut from the nearby Budawang Ranges. The mill opened in January 1860 under the name "The Jembaicumbene Steam Flour Mills," with a 20-horsepower steam engine and associated milling equipment supplied by P.N. Russell and Co. of Sydney, one of the largest engineering works in colonial Australia at the time. The building was designed by Sydney surveyor C.E. Langley. This photograph records the hoist floor as it now stands: a timber staircase climbing against a stone block wall, thick ropes hanging from a timber frame near the hoist mechanism, a low timber platform set over dark floorboards, and heavy beams overhead. The stone walls are rough-cut granite. The structural timbers are hardwood. The ropes remain in place, still threaded through the frame. Dransfield built the mill to serve a goldfield settlement that by 1859 had more than 1,000 miners working Jembaicumbene Creek, including approximately 600 Chinese miners. The mill housed flour milling, sawmilling, a quartz crushing battery, and a bakery within the same four-storey structure. Milling operations ceased in 1885. The steam engine and fittings were dismantled and removed at some point after closure. The mill building has been described as the most substantial structure surviving from the gold rush era in the Jembaicumbene district. A restoration of the property began around 2008 and took approximately 11 years. The lower floors were opened as the Wheatfield Gallery. The upper floors, including the hoist floor recorded here, retain the fabric of the original 1859 construction.