April 25th, 2024Heritage listing for Daylesford’s old school of mines building

The recent inclusion of the Old Daylesford School of Mines building on the Victorian Heritage Register has significant positive implications for the future of the building.

It means that the building that now houses the town’s museum will be able to attract crucial funding through Heritage Victoria for maintenance works into the future.

It also recognises the significant place that the 1890s brick building at 100 Vincent Street occupies as part of the state’s mining and education history.

The nomination was lodged by the former Daylesford Museum Reserve Committee of Management back in 2019.

Its successful listing on the register was confirmed in February this year providing much cause for celebration particularly among locals who played a key role in lodging the nomination.

Former Daylesford Museum Reserve Committee of Management chair Ken Warren is among them and delighted with the result. He notes how rare and difficult it is to have such a nomination succeed.

“We’re very, very fortunate to get this up on the register,” Mr Warren said.

“Everybody worked so hard to get there.”

Mr Warren says the listing has major implications for the ability of the current and future committees of management to attract ongoing funding required for upkeep of the building.

“It also preserves well into the future the building as significant for the shire and the state so it doesn’t disappear,” he said.

“Lots of places disappear because people don’t appreciate their sense of significance.

“This listing mean there is a sense of permanence and a line of funding into the future and it makes it even better as a site for the museum.”

Current repair and upgrade works are continuing on the building that today houses two much loved cultural institutions, the Daylesford and District Historical Society and the Daylesford Community Brass Band.

The museum building dates back to the early 1890s when it was used by the School of Mines to teach classes on science and art.

The building retains many of its original features including one of the earliest and most intact School of Mines laboratories and metallurgical laboratory interiors in Victoria.

The Victorian Heritage Database Report associated with the new listing notes that the School of Mines is historically significant as a forerunner of the technical schools that were a key part of the state’s education system for many decades.

The database records that: “The Daylesford School of Mines is architecturally significant as it retains a combination of fine features that are characteristic of an early technical school – roof lanterns for daylighting, distinctive brick assay chimney, furnaces, fume cupboards, and 1890s joinery”.

The old Daylesford School of Mines comprises the laboratory building with chimney and the art department building dating from 1890, and the technical school addition of 1914.

Local resident Graeme Orr was a student at the technical school in the late 1940s and the 1950s and said he was delighted to see the building gain heritage listing.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Graeme who attended school there from 1949 to 1951, starting at the tender age of 12.

“This is really exciting as there are not many Daylesford buildings on the State Register,” says Heather Mutimer who was secretary with the committee of management that lodged the successful application for listing.

“A lot of work went into the nomination and was underpinned by the completion of a detailed Conservation Management Plan,” Heather said.

Words & Image: Eve Lamb