Located in and around Maldon township, Maldon Historic Area protects many relics of the gold mining era – shafts and tunnels, mullock heaps, quartz roasting kilns, stone walls, chimneys and machinery. The area is surrounded by beautiful Box and Ironbark forests, once threatened by the constant demand for timber to feed steam boilers and shore up mine tunnels.

Alluvial gold was discovered in the Maldon district by Captain John Mechosk, a German prospector, in 1853, resulting in a rush of some 20,000 diggers to the alluvial gullies around Maldon. By the following year, only 2000 remained. After the initial rush, companies were set up to mine the rich, but sometimes elusive, quartz reefs. Some alluvial mining was carried out using puddling machines powered by horse or steam. In the 1860s the amount of quartz reef gold produced at Maldon almost rivalled Bendigo (Victoria’s richest quartz mining field). This prosperity was short lived (from 1870-1900), and the last deep mines closed in 1926. As gold production declined, the town’s population dwindled. For most of the last century, Maldon experienced very little growth. 

The miners left behind one of the best collections of accessible quartz reef mining relics in Victoria. Many of the mine sites, historic buildings and heritage features have been preserved.