I recently decided to check out a section of the old railway in my neck of the woods and see if I could find the old stations. One in particular yielded up some nice finds although I could find little information on the siding. Reading through the old papers I discovered it was built in 1881 on an existing line so the local farmers could get their grain to Port Wallaroo. It had two full time employees living on sight, one in a pine building and another in a stone two bedroom cottage. The ruins of the cottage and another built next to it later I believe are the ones in the photos below.
I started my search by circling the ruins expanding outwards and it wasn’t long before I picked up a nice S.A. dog registration tag. A bit of research on Trove revealed that coursing days were held around the station area, perhaps one of the hunting dogs lost this tag.
There was a number of buttons littered around and a couple of old utensils. Not far from the cottage ruins was another old foundation and the ground around it had the look of an old dumping spot. I found a second dog registration tag laying on the surface, this one was for the next year.
The belt buckle below I found under a bush near the second dog tag, it was missing its centerpiece but would be dated somewhere in the mid to late
Under a bush nearby I picked up the two best finds of that site, a cricket belt buckle
Coins were hard to come by but I did pick up two nice British coins around the ruins, an 1891 penny and a 1905 half penny. Given the age of the siding I was hoping for a nice mid 1800’s coin but it wasn’t until I moved away from the station area to where I presume they loaded the grain onto the trains that I found the coin I was hoping for.
An 1868 sixpence and in very nice condition for its age. I had a good sweep around the area where I found this coin but with no luck. Since I had spent a few days at this location I decided to move on to a new area but I will be back at some point to check I haven’t missed anything.