West Tamar - Beaconsfield

Gold was discovered at Brandy Creek in the 1870s, and it wasn't long before a substantial town, renamed to Beaconsfield, grew up. It was said to one of the biggest in the state at one stage. According to Town With a History, by Coultman Smith, in 1899, the population was "2,699, with 7 hotels, eight boarding houses, five bakers, four blacksmiths, two doctors, two watchmakers, a solicitor, a tailor, 15 general stores, six greengrocers, five drapers, a state school, and four private schools."



The mine closed in 1914 and the town soon faded away. I pulled out my books to get the dates the mine was operational and ended up with enough notes to make another post so I'll do that another day.


These days, the mine again supports the town (the new mine can be seen behind the right hand brick building), with a bit of tourism and some service provision for the local area, because up here it's far to run into Launceston all the time to go tot he shops.




An odd little junk shop, with most of the goods on the floor


and the adjoining fruit stall


Opposite the mine site, there is a relocated school house and miner's cottage set up so visitors can look through the windows. I'll put up some photos of them in a later post too.