Earlier this week Dot invited me to an event run by the local Probus Group, of which she is now Secretary. It was a trip to explore the Hillgrove Museum. The tiny village of Hillgrove has had a strange history. In the 1890s it was a very properous place with a population of 3,000, which was about the same as Armidale where I live. After the turn of the 20th century its fortune went downhill fast and recently its estimated population was only about 100. What happened? Well the village's original growth came on the back of gold and antimony mining. Some 15,000 kg of gold was extracted and about 14,700 tons of antimony. As with many mining communities the activity stops when either the resource is fully exhauseted or the price drops so low that mining becomes uneconomic.
Nowadays, Hillgrove has few services, but is home to people involved in the local famr economy or, to a minimum extent in its history - as embodied in a great little museum which has two main elements. The first is its lovely collection of farm machinery - the focus of this post. Secondly, it explores the economic and social life of Hillgrove's population a century or so ago. Let'ss have look at the farm machinery, some of it not in very good shape!
I found these items quite impressive, especially as they're a century or so old and located in a remote corner of the world. I wondered, also, whether it was imported from somewhere like the UK or, alternatively, was manufactured in a major city like Sydney. However, it wasn't always easy to see what the machinery / or equipment was supposed to do and how it operated. These pictures also remind me that Armidale's show-ground also has a corner that is a repository for antique farm machinery.
All this reminds me that we have an active club that treasures antique cars. I wonder long it will be before my petrol-driven car ends up as a display in some paddock while everyone drives around in an electric car.
AS
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