Dights Falls

By sharlae
  • Wurundjeri Balluk

    Wurundjeri Balluk

    The Wurundjeri Balluk people, the traditional owners of the land, inhabited the areas around the Yarra River hundreds of years prior to the colonisation. This was a great place for Aboriginal families to settle as it provided water, great vegetation and the river was a great meeting place for other groups of Aboriginals to meet and trade goods with each other
  • Charles Grimes

    Charles Grimes

    Charles Grimes, the Surveyor General of New South Wales led a party of people on an expedition to the Dights Falls area in order to see if it was worth developing it into a colony in the future. He is believed to be the first European to explore that particular are of the Yarra River.
  • Settlement

    Settlement

    Melbourne was settled in 1835 and eventually land was sub-divided and land was put up for sale all around the area.
  • John Dight

    John Dight bought Melbourne block 88 for 481 pounds at the Port Philip Land Sales held in Sydney.
  • Dight Leaves

    John Dight notified customers through the Sydney herald that he was moving to Port Philip on business opportunities.
  • Flour Mill

    Built in Melbourne was the first steam powered flour mill. Soon after Dight constructed a water powered mill with bricks from Tasmania. The Yarra River powered his mill through a wheel underwater right in front of the channel. To help when times of low river levels, he built a rough stone weir.
  • Abandoned

    The Dight Family abandon the flour milling business
  • Edwin Trennery

    The property is sold to Trennery and he sub-divides it.
  • Gillepsie, Aitken & Scott

    Group of people operating under Yarra Falls Roller Flour Mills built a brand new mill at the site of the original mill on the river bank. They also built other buildings.
  • SOLD

    The enterprise that Aitken, Gillepsie & Scott created was sold to the Melbourne Flour Milling Company
  • Weir

    Weir

    A timber structured weir was constructed to provide water for the Melbourne Flour Milling Company. It has since been repaired a lot since then.
  • 1895

    1895

    Part of the weir was struck by flood waters and washed away but was soon repaired
  • Fire

    Fire

    The mill changed management for the last time but was eventually destroyed by a fire.
  • Rebuilt

    It was rebuilt again
  • Barrier

    Melbourne Water discovered that the fish migration numbers were lacking due to a barrier from the weir. They built a rock fishway but it was soon proved to be ineffective.
  • New fishway

    New fishway

    A new fishway was constructed over the rock one and has since proved that it works because scientists have seen an increased population of native fish in the river.

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