Historical and Other Notes

  Chewton is a rural township in the Castlemaine goldfields area. It has Victoria’s longest operating gold mine at Wattle Gully. Situated on the Pyrenees Highway and the Bendigo railway line, Chewton is 4 km east of Castlemaine. There is nearly unbroken urban settlement from Chewton to Castlemaine, backed by goldfields heritage parks.   Forest Creek flows from Chewton to Castlemaine, and it was a rich source of alluvial gold shortly after discoveries in 1851. Chewton, first known as Forest Creek , is thought to have been renamed after Lord Chewton, an acquaintance of Lady Castlemaine. (The township of Castlemaine, however, was named after the place of that name in Ireland).   From an initial canvas town Chewton acquired a brick and timber township along the curved main road or Pyrenees Highway, which followed the less hilly contours between the ranges which rise to its north and south. Several of the buildings from the 1860s and 1870s remain, hugging the relatively narrow main road. D