So it’s time for my third and final blog post. Above is a photo that I found with thanks to Trove (National Library of Australia)—it is believed that the house in this photo is of ‘The Hall’ at the Lady Alice Mine. With a lot of archival research through Trove I was able to find out who was present at the mine, what they found and what materials were being found.
There is not a huge amount of information available about the site, as it was only a small mine in South Australia. However, over the course of operations at the mine, many interstate ministers visited the site. They were highly interested in the amount of gold and copper that was being found at the site. The Lady Alice Mine was one of the most successful gold mines in South Australia. However it did close an re-open throughout the corse of its occupation.
As well as metal artefacts, there were also ceramics and glass collected. With these we were able to use those to give an approximate date range from 1863 until the early 20th century. These dates coincide with the date of the opening of the mine, which was in 1871. We know that people have always re-used and handed down ceramics and home wares, this could be the reason that the ceramics date earlier than the opening of the mine.
We can tell from the metal and iron artefacts that were collected is that the site was home to a working mine. A small amount of corrugated iron was found, this could be due to the fact that it is a light weight material and when those who lived there up and left the site, they took the corrugated iron with them.
This photo shows a pipe that was found on the site, this could allow us to argue that there was some sort of water managment occurring. However this could always be debated.
It has now come to the end of my experience with the Lady Alice Mine, i hope that this blog and my last blog posts have allowed you to learn a little about the site.
