Hillgrove museum ready to reopen this Friday

Hillgrove Rural Life and Industry Museum will reopen to the public from this Friday after a nine-month closure.

A group of keen volunteers and Council staff gave the 125-year-old building a spring clean on Saturday in preparation for the reopening.

The working bee swept, vacuumed and dusted inside and outside the former school house and began the process of refreshing and revitalising the displays, which feature artefacts and photographs from the village’s heyday more than 100 years ago.

Hillgrove was a as a thriving gold mining town at the turn of the 19th Century, home to six pubs, four churches and a population exceeding 3000 people.

The museum displays capture those heady days of mining and rural life in the village and surrounds, which went into decline as the gold mines ceased to be profitable at the start of the 1900s.

The museum has been closed since last November, after long-serving museum attendant Judith Cox retired.

It is reopening in time for the school holidays. Its opening hours will be Friday to Monday, 10am to 2pm, or by appointment for groups outside those hours.

A series of information sessions was held earlier this month for people interested in volunteering to help operate the museum. The sessions attracted a number of keen participants but further volunteers are always welcome.

Interested people can contact the museum’s Interim Coordinator, Bronwyn Clarke, at [email protected] or 0438 752011.

Published on 21 Sep 2020