Gold detecting and panning at Grenfell NSW?

[Nugget]

I'm hopefully heading to Grenfell in the next week or so to visit family and will be taking the detector along mainly to hunt for old coins.

I didn't know this until recently but according to Wikipedia Grenfell used to be a gold mining town back in the 1800s, by 1870/71 it was supposedly producing more gold than any other NSW town but by the mid 1870s gold production in the area had declined.

Now what I would like to know is has anyone been gold detecting around Grenfell in recent years and found anything?

 

[the duck]

good luck be good to see how you go

 

[Nugget]

My grandparents have an old place there so hopefully a few old coin drops and my aunty and uncle own property so might try my luck finding some gold.

 

[the duck]

well you only have to put the detector over it to find it thats the name of the game

 

[Black-Pete]

Most of the gold areas there are on private property and very little evidence remains as to where the diggings were because most of the diggings have been reclaimed by the land owners with crops planted over them. If you can get hold of some old maps you may be able to establish where the old leads were and if your family don't own land with old diggings then your only resort would be to get permission to detect on private land. Hope you can get on somewhere.
Black-Pete

 

[Nugget]

Thanks Black-Pete. I need to find out exactly what land they own, they've got a dairy farm somewhere just outside of Grenfell but I've never actually been out to the property, only been to the house.

 

[sjy120]

Grenfell has an old historic site as you drive into town from Cowra on top of the hill. From memory it was called O'Briens reef and was quite a deep mine. You can walk down to the old stamper and see the old shaft's which are fenced off for public safety.
I have property out near Bumbaldry and there were some old mines out near Tyagong creek but I've yet to be able to find them myself.
Not gold related but interesting also out the other side of town are the Weddin Mountains and in the National Park there is Ben Halls cave where the bushrangers used to camp, it's sign posted and there is a walking track up to the cave.

 

[Copper]

Either way, be sure to let us know hoe you go Nugget.

Cheers
Copper

P.S don't forget your camera

 

[Nugget]

Hey guys, yeah I checked out O'Briens reef but it's apparent that it had been hit 1000 times over, not to mention the landfill that has occurred over the years in order to create a safe tourist attraction. I did find a few relatively modern cans buried at around the 4-6" mark but nothing much else.

I also detected a relatives property which is riddled with quartz but found nothing more than lead slugs and old style nails, so I ended up heading to an old park (Lawson park I think its called), and managed to pick up a few pre-decs and around $8 in moderns which I gave to my younger brothers.

It was a fun trip and always great to catch up with family.

 

[AlluvialRic]

There is plenty of info and maps on the NSW DPI site about the Grenfell goldfield. There were some very rich reefs sunk on and a fair amount of Alluvial leads as well.
My brother lives in Grenfell and told me it was the water in the mines that stopped them. The pumps could not keep up

Ric

 

[raygooley]

spot on Ric early on people never recieved centerlink you had to work either in the fields or mining hence lots of holes grenfell to cowra old goologong rd there are shafts every where not only mines but wells