The Old Grunthal Gold and Copper Mine

In the 1800s my great grandfather had a farm on Beaumonts Road in the Adelaide Hills town of Grunthal, now called Verdun. One of my cousins still farms that same land today.

Imagine the interest Paladian and I had when we saw advertised for sale the farm next to where great granddad lived. No, we are not interested in becoming farmers, but we were interested to go and see the property today at its first open inspection. But that is just the beginning of the story.

Not many people know that the very first mining for metals in Australia started in 1841, right here in the Adelaide Hills. This brought a mining boom that caused Adelaide's population to treble in the next ten years.

The Grunthal mine began mining copper in 1870 on this farm site after this very valuable mineral was discovered the previous year. The mine was named after the nearby town of Grunthal - German for Green Valley. After the First World War the town was renamed Verdun in 1917 when many German named towns had their names changed. However the name of the mine remained unchanged.

The high copper prices enabled substantial stone buildings to be constructed on the property in 1872 to house the boilerhouse, enginehouse, and crushing plant, with a large chimney erected nearby. A stone mine manager's house of 11 rooms was also built overlooking the mine works.

This fully refurbished historic Mine Manager's House along with the now derelict Grunthal Mine buildings constitutes the basis of the sale, along with 170 hectares of prime farmland.

My blip shows the Boilerhouse, Engine Room and Crushing Plant at the Grunthal Mine as it remains today.

Clearer decay.

After a world slump in copper prices in 1876, this mine ceased production, but Grunthal mine reopened again briefly in 1882 to mine for gold. Further attempts to find gold in 1913 and 1935 were also largely unsuccessful and the mine shafts are now fenced off and filled with water.

I had a wonderful time photographing inside and outside at all of these derelict and decaying old buildings.

Ore was fed to the top floor of the crusherhouse from the mine using ore trucks along a small tram track. The crushed material was then removed from the lower level by cart. It is said that that more than 420 tons of unrefined copper was produced during the short life of the mine.

Interestingly the mine manager's house also had several uses. After the Grunthal school closed in 1887 at the local church, the school reopened in 1898 in the Grunthal Mine Manager's home where it operated until 1913, closing exactly 100 years ago.