The Bendigo Trust

Central Deborah Gold Mine	Bendigo Tramways	Bendigo Gasworks & Victoria Hill
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Central Deborah Gold Mine

No one knows exactly the number of mine shafts sunk in the Bendigo Goldfields, although current estimates are around 6,000. However, it is known that the official records do not list many of the mines that managed to operate “under the radar”, so this figure could be even higher.

Bendigo’s goldfields—the seventh richest in history—closed in 1954, primarily due to the then fixed price of gold, rather than the exhaustion of the field. The Central Deborah Gold Mine, established in 1939, was the second last to close, succeeded by a matter of days by the “Big Deborah” mine.

The Central Deborah Gold Mine site remained intact after it closed, and was re-opened as a tourist mine offering tours of the surface of the mine by The Bendigo Trust in 1970. Sixteen years later, in 1986, Central Deborah Gold Mine began running its famous underground mine tours.

After years of restoration and interpretation work, the heritage listed Central Deborah Gold Mine is now Australia’s premier underground tourist mine experience. It tells the story of Australia’s richest Goldfield, focusing on the years 1939-1954 when the Central Deborah Gold Mine site was last and most extensively worked.

Recently, modern mining has ventured deep below the old workings and has begun to re-open the Bendigo Goldfields, shuttered for more than 50 years. Bendigo Mining is currently working deep beneath the city, perhaps aiming to work below any other mine sunk in Bendigo since gold was first discovered in 1852.

For more information on the Central Deborah Gold Mine click here to visit the website.