maldon australia

"THE 'FINIAL' TOUCH"

A feature of some 19th. century cottages in Maldon was the gable finial cut from a flat board (see photo at right). The cottage in the photo is in a run-down state, but it is pleasing to see that this flat finial remains. By contrast, there have been cottages that have been "done up" and lost their finials during the process.

Such finials made from flat timber are not common in Maldon today, but they can be found if you try. Our heading photo on this page shows a shop in High Street which has several finials of the type that we are talkng about (right end of photo).

The photo on the right shows a view that should be familiar to anyone that has looked carefully at the old buildings in Maldon's Main Street. It shows one of the 2 dormer windows above McArthur's Bakery. It is interesting to note how the finial is set back flush with the barge-boards, rather than placed over the join where the barge-boards meet each other. Another point of interest is that the barge capping consists of timber boards. There have been several recent incidents where historic buildings in Maldon have been "improved" by having their timber barge-caps replaced with sheet-metal (folded in a mock representation of the boards that they have replaced).

MALDON

The town of Maldon is located in the State of Victoria, which is in the south-east corner of Australia. Maldon is approximately 150 kms north-west of Melbourne (which is Victoria's capital city). More precisely, Maldon lies at Latitude 37 degrees South, and Longitude 144 degrees East.

The Maldon township has an elevation of approximately 320 metres, Mt. Tarrangower (immediately adjacent to Maldon) tops 570 metres.

In the 2006 Census (held on 8th August 2006), there were 1,221 persons usually resident in the Maldon urban centre: 47.0% were males and 53.0% were females. 16.0% of the population usually resident in Maldon were children aged between 0-14 years, and 43.0% were persons aged 55 years and over. The median age of persons in Maldon was 50 years, compared with 37 years for persons in Australia.

If you are wanting more information about Maldon, give www.maldon.net.au a try. We have found the info. provided there to be very useful.

WILLIAM BLAIR GRAY 1833-1904

William Gray was a remarkable Maldon resident who was associated with many Maldon organisations over the years. He was a Freemason, an Oddfellow, and he was the founding president of the Maldon Australian Natives Association. He was president of the Maldon and Baringhup Agricultural Society.

He was a Maldon Shire councillor from 1887 until the year that he died (1904). During his time on the council, he was Shire President on 4 occassions: 1889-1890,1892-1894,1898-1900,1901-1903. His political career also took him to the Victorian Parliament, where he was a Member of the Legislative Council from June 1901 to his death in July 1904.

Gray was also a Railway Contractor, whose works included the Castlemaine to Maldon line, and the Tatura to Echuca line. However he is probably most remembered because he persuaded the Victorian goverment to purchase the rights to use the patented South African process of cyaniding gold extraction. This allowed miners in the state to re-process the tailings left from past mining operations, and thus obtain much more gold.