| House | $678,300  |
| Land | $144,600  |
Surrounding suburbs
| Allendale | $710,600 |
| Blampied | $1,400,000 |
| Neighbour Photos |
| Map | Street view | Nearby property price |
| Planning History: |
| Registered as Victorian heritage |
| Last updated on - May 21, 1999 What is Significant? Anderson's Mill Complex, Smeaton, comprises a huge bluestone mill building, water wheel, 23 metre tall brick chimney, bluestone office, stables, granary, blacksmiths shop and residence. The complex was built for the Anderson brothers from 1861 onwards to service Creswick's prospering agricultural district. The ten bay bluestone mill building is four stories high with an attic storey in the gabled slate roof. The 28-foot (8.5 metre) diameter water wheel, built by Ballarat engineering firm Hunt and Opie, is fed by a mill race about 900 metres long which commences at a bluestone weir on Birch Creek. The industrial elements of the mill complex are located in a highly intact landscape setting which includes the Anderson family home and its garden, Birch Creek and the bridge on the access road and areas of European vegetation, all set within the context of the creek valley and surrounding farm land. The first part of the timber residence was built in the early 1860s with further additions in the nineteenth century including a separate bluestone kitchen block. The residence has a typical Victorian era cottage garden including berry gardens and a timber front boundary fence and gate to the mill area. The Anderson brothers migrated from Scotland in 1851, and were involved in goldmining at first before developing a thriving sawmilling business which serviced the gold mining industry. They were also involved into agriculture and land speculation. Their successes enabled them to make the large investment in the Mill. John Anderson had trained as a millwright in Scotland. Numerous flour mills were built in the established agricultural districts of Victoria in the 1850s and 60s. As with many mills from this period, the Smeaton mill's initial prosperity was short-lived as Victoria's drier northern areas, which were better suited to wheat growing, were developed for agriculture under the Selection Acts from the mid-1870s. In the same period the technology of wheat milling changed from stone to roller mills, and consumers came to prefer the product from the roller mills. David Anderson, one of the second generation of millers, invested in new roller milling equipment in 1895 and also diversified into oat-milling. The mill continued to operate for another sixty years as a flour and oatmeal mill before it closed in the late 1950s. Members of the Anderson family lived continuously in the residence on the site up until 2008. The Andersons Mill Complex, apart from the residence, was purchased by the State government in 1987 as a Bicentennial gift to the people of Victoria, and the land became a Historic Reserve which is now under the management of Parks Victoria. How is it Significant The Andersons Mill Complex is of historical, scientific (technical), and |
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