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The indigenous Wurundjeri tribe of the Kulin nation occupied the area prior to the European settlement. The rock falls would have given a natural river bridge and a spot to catch migrating fish for the Aboriginal people. It was also a gathering point for various clans to trade, settle disputes, and swap brides. -
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John Dight, a flour miller based in Campbell Town. Obtained portion 88, Parish of Jika Jika, County of Bourke, On the 7th of November 1838. Over the span of the next few years, he built a small brick mill on the site, and began the making of flour. -
In November 1843, the ownership of the land was passed onto John Dight, and his brother Charles Hilton Dight. -
In 1864, the use of flour milling was abandoned, and the mill was later rented to Thomas Kenny. -
The Patent Safety Blasting Powder Co. used the structure in the mid-1870s. -
In 1878, the Dight family sold the mill to Edwin Trennery, who then subdivided the property. -
The original mill on the riverbank remained untouched until 1888, when flour millers Gillespie, Aitken, and Scott built a new mill and related structures on the site under the name 'Yarra Falls Roller Flour Mills.' The mill race was reconstructed using bluestone blocks from Dight's old mill building at a similar location on the site, and a new mill and associated structures were built some distance away from the original mill building.
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In 1890, the founding of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works was started. -
The reconstructed mill was sold in 1891 to the Melbourne Flour Milling Company, run by the Hon. -
the Board issued a licence to the company in 1895 for the building and maintenance of the weir at the Falls. -
The Melbourne Flour Milling Company sold their mill and business on the Yarra River at Abbotsford to Messrs John Darling and Son, well-known millers and wheat merchants from South Australia, in 1909. The lease with the Board of Works was extended by John Darling and Son, but only for three months. During this time, however, the mill was destroyed by a devastating fire. In the twenty years following the fire, most of the mill buildings were dismantled and removed from the site. -
The Weir is historically significant because it shows the location of the original weir and the function it played in diverting the river to the turbine house, despite being largely rebuilt in 1941. It was built to aid in the control of the Yarra River, and its presence demonstrates the importance of the Yarra River in the mill's job.
