Regional Council of Goyder, South Australia, will bring the past alive with a proposal for the ‘Conservation and Activation of Paxton Square Cottages Heritage Site’, thanks to a $400,000 Australian Heritage grant from the Commonwealth Government and $100,000 from Council.
Paxton Square Cottages were built in 1852 by the owners of the Burra ‘Monster Mine’ to encourage miners to leave the dangerous dugout dwellings they had burrowed into in the banks of Burra creek.
The cottages have been restored and provide heritage accommodation for visitors. The current project will reconstruct the backyards and communal garden square around which the cottages were built, adapting the entire historic site as a tourism facility.
The project will highlight the historical significance of the area and enable visitors to envisage daily life in the original backyards and on the ‘common’.
Mayor, Peter Mattey, said, “This project will assist to protect and conserve the outstanding national heritage value Paxton Square Cottages hold, as one of Australia’s first company owned housing developments and its significance to Australian Cornish Mining Sites”.
The Australian Heritage Grants program is the flagship program for funding places in the National Heritage List and enables managers of heritage sites and other groups working in the community to protect and promote all places in Australia’s National Heritage List.
