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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, 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
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
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
Part of the weir was struck by flood waters and washed away but was soon repaired -
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
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.
