Glenore (Woolshed diggings), Milton, Clutha District, Otago Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Glenore (Woolshed diggings)	- not defined -
Milton	- not defined -
Clutha District	District
Otago Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Alluvial gold.

Glenore is a location 7 kilometres west north-west of Milton on State Highway 8. The site was known during the gold rush days as Woolshed, due to miners illegally taking timber from farmer James Smith's woolshed, although the official name is Glenore.

Alluvial gold was found in gravel cements along the Toromairaro River West Branch. The cement area is smaller than other areas closer to Lawrence, being about one kilometre wide. The term cement is used for a hardened conglomerate of quartz and schist pebbles, in a hardened fine grained auriferous matrix. It is known as Blue Spur Conglomerate, named at Gabriels Gully, and a bluish colour at depth, containing very fine gold. The conglomerate is found bordering the Tuapeka Fault Zone at several locations including Gabriels Gully, Weatherston, and Forsyth.

Credit for the discovery of gold here goes to Edward Peters (known as Black Peter), an Indian from Mumbai (Bombay), who was working on a station owned by Davy and Bowler (surnames). His interest in gold was aroused after talking to a prospector. Edwards in his spare time then began prospecting local creeks for gold. He was finding on the surface many quartz specimens containing gold in local creeks around 1858. As such this was two to three years before the more celebrated discovery by Gabriel Read, at what would become known as Gabriels Gully, setting off a major gold rush.

John L. Gillies came across Peters while searching for lost horses, and was shown gold Peters had found. Gillies a short time later met Gabriel Read at a political meeting, and told him about the gold. Read had grown up in Tasmania, and when he was 26 sailed his own schooner to the Californian gold rushes. He found little gold, but had learned a lot. He returned to Australia, and went to the Victorian gold rushes at Ballarat, but became disenchanted with the Eureka Stockade and violence that ensued.

In 1861, Gabriel was in New Zealand and when told of the gold Edward Peters had found immediately set off, eventually finding gold in Gabriels Gully. Gabriel was award 1000 pounds for the discovery of the first payable gold field in Otago. Peters made at least two requests to be awarded money for gold found, which were rejected. Later in life he was living as a pauper, and the government agreed to 50 pounds, if public subscriptions matched it, which was quickly raised.

Unlike Gabriel, Edward Peters had little knowledge of where he could find gold. John Thompson, who partly founded the Kaitangata coal mine, and was provincial surveyor, spent three months with Edwards, stating they lost more gold than they found. Much has subsequently been written about Edwards, to the point it has overshadowed Gabriel's achievements. A memorial to Edward Peters can be found along State Highway 8, near Glenore.

There was alluvial mining at Glenore in the 1860's, and then Chinese re-worked the claims in the 1870's. It was never a rich field.

Glenore saw its fair share of dredging during the boom of the late 1890's. From Glenore moving downstream was the Glenore Dredging Company, whose dredge by 1899 was laid up by the railway line, having unsuccessfully battled clay and blue cement. The company was also in litigation with the local land owner Dunn (surname) over damage the dredge had done to his farm. Next down the creek was the Goldbank dredging party, with August Thomas as dredge master, engineer, and a shareholder. The syndicate had constructed the dredge themselves, one of the party being a shipwright. Then the Stirling gold dredging party, starting in 1899, with John Nelson as dredge master, and a shareholder. Next was the Riverbank Gold Dredging Company, then the Woolshed Gold Dredging Company which had been operating from 1898, with William Mercer as dredge master, and a shareholder.

Bordering the eastern side of the highway at Glenore was a modern alluvial mining operation by L and M Mining, from the late 1990's. Gold was located in quartz and weathered schist gravels, interbedded with sand and yellow clay. While the primary focus was gold, processing also yielded yellow and brown zircons, blue sapphire, pink, purple and orange corundum crystals, eroded from alkali basaltitic rocks. The indication is the material is not much greater than sand grain size.

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