VICMining
Hepburn Springs
Gold diggings that turned into a spa.
1852Gold found at Spring Creek
WHAT STARTED IT
Hepburn Springs began as the Spring Creek diggings, where gold was found in 1852, and Italian-speaking Swiss miners skilled at tunnelling stayed on when the alluvial gold gave out. Effervescent mineral springs rose along the same creek, and from 1865 residents moved to protect them from the miners.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The springs were set aside as a public reserve, and by 1868 Daylesford residents were asking the government for leave to bottle some of the water, said to run to waste at 12,000 gallons a day. The railway to Daylesford in 1880 brought visitors to take the waters, followed by a bathhouse, a pavilion and guesthouses.
TURNING POINTS
1852Gold is discovered at Spring Creek, later Hepburn Springs.
1865Residents, two-thirds of them Italian, take steps to protect the mineral springs from mining.
1868A deputation asks the Minister of Lands to let a Daylesford company bottle surplus water from the springs reserve.
1895A brick bathhouse is built at the springs, offering hydrotherapy.
1908The Hepburn Springs Pavilion opens for holidaymakers.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small spa village of about 370 people beside the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve, merging into Hepburn and Daylesford. The bathhouse, renovated in the 1980s, keeps the spa trade going.