Hillgrove, is a Northern Tablelands (New South Wales) village with population of about 95. The village is located approximately 30 km east of Armidale and is 5 kilometres south of the Waterfall Way

Waterfall Way

The Waterfall Way is a road and State Highway 78 in New South Wales, Australia. It runs east-west from the Pacific Highway to the New England Highway at Armidale. The route passes through some of New South Wales' most scenic countryside and has become well known as New South Wales best and...

. Hillgrove is part of the Armidale Dumaresq Council Local Government Area and is in Sandon County. This historic goldmining town is situated at elevation of 1,000 metres on a granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

 above Bakers Creek and near the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park

Oxley Wild Rivers National Park

Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is in New South Wales, Australia, 445 kilometres north of Sydney and is named in memory of the Australian explorer John Oxley, who passed through the area in 1818...

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History

The town was first known as 'Eleanora Township', named after the antimony

Antimony

Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...

 mine that for nearly a decade after 1876 was the sole reason for its existence. The name 'Hillgrove' was given to the town in 1888. Hillgrove was one of the major gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 fields in New South Wales, with a recorded production of over 15,000 kg of gold. It has also been a significant producer of antimony (14,700 tons) and tungsten

Tungsten

Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...

 (at least 2,000 tons of scheelite

Scheelite

Scheelite is a calcium tungstate mineral with the chemical formula CaWO4. It is an important ore of tungsten. Well-formed crystals are sought by collectors and are occasionally fashioned into gemstones when suitably free of flaws...

).

Although some alluvial gold was discovered in Bakers Creek gorge as early as 1857, it was not until antimony was discovered that important mining was undertaken in the late 1870s. The main shaft in Bakers Creek was sunk 610 metres below the surface. Tramways operated by a steam-powered winding engine pulled the trams up and down the precipitous incline to the Bakers Creek mines.

The town of Hillgrove was established in 1884 and grew rapidly during the 1880s and 1890s due to the expanding production of the mining companies. Hillgrove Post Office opened on 1 June 1884 and closed in 1979. A Hillgrove West Post Office opened in 1890, was renamed Metz in 1896 and closed in 1922. At its peak in about 1898, the town's population was close to 3,000, similar to that of Armidale. Hillgrove then had four churches, six hotels, two schools, a school of arts, a hospital, several banks, a stock exchange, a court house, police station, a recreation ground, a technical college, debating society, a temperance league and a cordial factory. The town also printed its own local paper - The Hillgrove Guardian. In 1895 it became the first town to be supplied with power by means of hydro-electricity which operated from Gara Gorge to the west.

Hillgrove began to decline after 1900. The difficulties and expense of its deep underground workings led investors and miners to seek more profitable ventures elsewhere. Gold finds were exhausted and antimony prices declined by the 1920s leading to mining companies shutting down. Shortly after most of the town's buildings were being dismantled and relocated to Armidale and other centres.
In all, the Eleanora and Bakers Creek Mines produced 15,600 kg of gold. By 1933 there were just 241 residents left.

Goldmining briefly resumed between 1937 and 1940. However, it was the 'Damned If I Know Mine', a small operation which extracted tungsten ore between the late 1930s and the late 1950s which turned a large profit, particularly during World War II when tungsten's steel-strengthening capacity was in great demand. Antimony mining came into its own in 1969 and is still mined today along with gold and this sustains the village. In March 2004, the Hillgrove Gold Project, located near Armidale, New South Wales, was purchased by Straits, who are making developmental plans for the area.

The post office and school are the only substantial buildings which remain. The school buildings (1897) are now used to house the Hillgrove Rural Life and Industry Museum, giving the visitor a view into the rich heritage of the past.

Hillgrove Goldmining Area and also the Antimony Mine on Stockton Rd, Hillgrove have been placed on the Register of the National Estate

Register of the National Estate

The Register of the National Estate is a listing of natural and cultural heritage places in Australia. The listing was initially compiled between 1976 and 2003 by the Australian Heritage Commission. The register is now maintained by the Australian Heritage Council...

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Attractions

Long Point campground is 18 km south of Hillgrove in the wilderness of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. There are two posted walking tracks through dry rainforest and around the rim of the gorge offering good views over the Chandler and Macleay River systems. The overnight Chandler River Walk to Wollomombi starts here. Some rare Eucalyptus michaeliana

Eucalyptus michaeliana

Eucalyptus michaeliana, commonly known as Hillgrove spotted gum, is a tree that grows to about 30 metres high and has a distinctive mottled, greenish trunk with peeling yellow-brown bark . These trees may be seen growing along the Long Point Road south of Hillgrove...

(Hillgrove Gum) trees may be seen growing along the Long Point Road. These trees have a distinctive, mottled, greenish trunk with peeling yellow-brown bark (like jigsaw puzzle pieces). Its range is restricted to Mount Barney National Park

Mount Barney National Park

Mount Barney National Park is a national park in Queensland , 90 km southwest of Brisbane. It amalgamated the adjacent Mount Lindesay National Park in 1980. It is part of the Scenic Rim Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance in the conservation...

 in Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 and in NSW to the Wyong and Hillgrove areas.

Bakers Creek Falls lookout is about 1.5 km from the Waterfall Way and provides views of the commencement of the Bakers Creek Gorge.

Metz, which was known as West Hillgrove, is situated on the western side of the Bakers Creek gorge from Hillgrove and has a scenic viewing platform at Metz Gorge. The good panorama here makes it possible to see some relics of the old Bakers Creek Mine at the bottom of the gorge, 490 m below Hillgrove. The shaft was sunk a further 610 m below the surface, almost to sea-level.