Kingower has a claim to fame as the discovery site of the largest gold nugget ever found with a metal detector – the Hand of Faith! But that’s just one little snippet of the area’s rich and fascinating history.
The Kingower goldfield was opened in 1853 and quickly became renowned for its abundance of massive gold nuggets, attracting thousands of diggers! Part of the Kingower field later became known as the Potato Diggings. Huge nuggets lay about as plentiful as potatoes in a field, and were regularly pried from the earth with great excitement.
The Kingower field was first discovered by Captain John Mechosk (have seen it referred to as Mechoski – check), a professional prospector who was the first to find many notable goldfields during the gold rush. His story is an amazing one, and has been compiled on the Dunolly Museum website.
The incredible Blanche Barkly nugget was discovered in Kingower in 1857, and at that time was the largest gold nugget ever found, weighing in at a whopping 1,743 ounces!
Named after the Governor’s daughter, the Blanche Barkly was described as being “about as large as an average sized fore-quarter of mutton, and bears some resemblance to that joint”.
Kingower gold maps
- 19??, Kingower, County of Gladstone. Department of Crown Lands and Survey. Shows reefs, gold workings, recent, pliocene, silurian, metamorphic and granite.