Welshtown
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Dunbar Loop
S 44° 56.413 E 169° 22.183
59G E 371375 N 5022397
The remains of a miner's stone cottage at Welshtown.
Waymark Code: WM659E
Location: South Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 04/05/2009
Views: 11
Welshtown was the uppermost and last established of the three mining communities on the Bendigo Reef. The two previous communities, Bendigo and Logantown, are within eight kilometres of Welshtown. Bendigo was established during the first gold rush of the reef in 1862. Whilst Logantown and Welshtown were both established in 1869. Depending on the source, Logantown was surpassed by Welshtown as the dominant mining centre in either 1872 (1) or 1875 (2).
Welshtown took its name “after its inhabitants” (3). However, I have been unable to verify this note. But in 1878 the community was describe by the regional newspaper “as a few neat little iron cottages of resident miners and a small iron building used as a church” (4).
The census of 1881 recorded “57 males and 20 females” (5). This goes contrary to one source that dates the demise of Welchtown in 1880 (6). Further mining activity on the Bendigo Reef continued until 1938 (7). When Welchtown no longer had any inhabitants is not clear, although it appears from all the sources that there is no longer a reference to Welchtown itself after 1910.
Welshtown and Logantown are now a part of the Department of Conservation’s Bendigo Historic Reserve. If you walk in this area please do so with caution, as one author wrote: the site is "riddled with mine shafts fifty-five metres [180 feet] deep as common and as well-concealed as rabbit holes" (8).
The coordinates shown above are for the car park, which is immediately adjacent the majority of structures left in Welchtown.
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FOOTNOTES:
(1) Gorden Ell. New Zealand Ghost Towns and glimpses of the past. 1994.
(2) Peter Bristow. A Brief History of Mining at the Bendigo Historic Reserve. 1997.
(3) David McGill. Ghost Towns of New Zealand. 1980.
(4) Peter Bristow.
(5) Peter Bristow.
(6) Gorden Ell.
(7) Peter Bristow.
(8) David McGill.
Reason for Abandonment: Economic
Date Abandoned: 12/31/1910
Related Web Page: [Web Link]
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