Charters Towers……..Wow!!!!

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We departed Townsville mid – morning and headed 150 km. west to the old gold mining town of Charters Towers for 3 nights.

The gold boom between 1872 and 1899 brought people, activity and prosperity to Charters Towers. During this period, with a population of 27,000, Charters Towers was Queensland’s largest town outside Brisbane and operated one of the few regional stock exchanges in Australia. Charters Towers has many wonderfully preserved buildings and I cannot recall any Australian historic city hearts as beautifully preserved as Charters Towers One Square Mile.

The Stock Exchange building is magnificent and it is great that the community has kept it. It was originally built as the “Royal Arcade” for a businessman in 1888-89. It was a 2 storey arcade, with a glass roof and large tiled floor space and illuminated by gas light at night. The stock exchange continued to operate until the 1920s. In the1960’s it became derelict and was to be demolished but was saved by the council.

 

We took in a tour of Australia’s oldest remaining gold battery known as the Venus Gold Battery. The Battery opened in July 1872, soon after gold was discovered in Charters Towers. For more than a century, the battery crushed gold bearing quartz from mines across North Queensland. The battery has had extensive restoration work.

 

Other points of interest were Towers Hill which provided good views of the town and has some interesting World War 11 bunkers, as well as Burdekin Weir which provides Charters Towers water supply. The Burdekin River is a major Australian river.

 

On our last afternoon in Towers we caught up with Jacqui & Matt Jeffries and family. Jacqui is Cheryl’s second cousin & her and Matt have their own industrial supplies business and have just moved to new premises.