Leanne Howard
The Daylesford School of Mines, now the home of the Daylesford Museum and the Daylesford Community Brass Band, has been added to the Victoria Heritage Register.
The VHR lists and provides legal protection for approximately 2,400 heritage places and objects that are significant to the history and development of Victoria.
The School of Mines building has always been a significant place for the local community. It housed the former School of Mines (c.1889-1903), Art and Technical School (c.1903-1961), to the Spa Community Youth Club (c.1961-1964), the Letwin Knitting Mills (c.1964-1969) and the Daylesford Museum from the 1970s. Many families in Daylesford and the wider community will have their own connection to and memories and stories about the site.
In February 2024, recognition of the site’s State-level cultural heritage significance was confirmed by the Heritage Council of Victoria on the recommendation of their Executive Director. The Executive Director of Heritage Victoria recommends whether a place or object should be registered but the final decision is made by the Heritage Council of Victoria, an independent statutory body.
A nomination had been made to Heritage Victoria several years before to include the former School of Mines and Technical School on the VHR. The application was made by former volunteer members of the Daylesford Museum Reserve Committee of Management (DMRCoM) with the support of the building’s owner, then the Victorian Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (DELWP now DEECA).
Places and objects that are nominated for heritage listing are rigorously evaluated using the Heritage Council’s assessment criteria to determine their importance to the history and development of Victoria. Part of this evaluation process includes comparing the nominated site against other similar places.
The Daylesford School of Mines and Technical School was reviewed against the Heritage Council’s assessment criteria and was found to be of historical and architectural significance to the State of Victoria satisfying two of the criteria for inclusion in the VHR.
The Daylesford School of Mines is “important to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history”. As a forerunner of the technical schools that were a key part of the Victorian education system for many decades, Daylesford School of Mines allows the early evolution of technical education in Victoria to be better understood than in comparable places in the State. As a more modestly scaled institution than the larger and more grandiose examples surviving in larger regional towns, the Daylesford School of Mines building demonstrates the sequential development of technical education in Victoria with the School of Mines laboratories and Art Department at the rear and the later Technical School addition facing Vincent Street. Its location in Daylesford, one of Victoria’s smaller gold mining communities, tells us about the scale and impact of gold on the culture and history of Victoria.
The Daylesford School of Mines is also important “in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects”. The building is architecturally significant and a notable example of the class of ‘technical school’ as it retains a large combination of fine features that are typical of an early technical school such as roof lanterns for daylighting, the distinctive brick assay chimney, furnaces, fume cupboards and 1890s joinery. The Art Department Building retains its roof and window forms which provided the lighting necessary for the teaching of subjects such as drawing, casting and dressmaking. The combination of the three building phases on the site show all the characteristics of a new higher education system in which both the arts and sciences are taught within the one building complex. The Technical School addition provides classrooms that support or supplement the older buildings and demonstrates the further expansion of the technical and high school curriculum in the twentieth century.
DMRCoM chair, Mr Gary Carter, said ‘’This is a very important heritage building and community asset and its listing on the VHR now provides the appropriate protections for the 130-year-old Museum building which is currently home to the Daylesford and District Historical Society and the Daylesford Community Brass Band. These are both very important community and cultural organisations that have called the Museum home for over 50 years. In addition to the extensive repair works undertaken on the building over the last three years, this listing will ensure this important community building in the main street of Daylesford is preserved.’’
More information on the Daylesford School of Mines can be found on the Victoria Heritage Database.
Dr Leanne Howard is a local resident and a member of the Daylesford Museum Reserve Committee of Management.
