Why Save Donnelly River Mill?
“Donnelly River Mill is rare as the only remaining substantially intact example of a steam driven saw dust fuelled timber mill in Australia, and is of exceptional cultural heritage and educational significance to the State of Western Australia.”
Register of Heritage Places July 2004.
The Mill and its equipment is nearly all as originally built and installed and is one of the few remaining mills still standing in almost complete form with Townsite, a WA Heritage Award Winner in 2016.
The mill is largely intact, around which the settlement is constructed, and is rare as the only extant example of a steam-powered hardwood timber mill in Western Australia it demonstrates the application of steam power and the innovative mechanisms developed to drive the mill equipment from a single power source, a technological process no longer practised.
With the extension of electric power distribution and diesel power generation timber mills progressively changed to this source of power and the need to relocate steam engines to new mills on the closure of old mills ceased.
