Early efforts were focussed on alluvial gold and the towns of Hill End and Tambaroora grew up around the creeks and dams worked for that purpose.

In 1859, with the imposition of an urban plan for Hill End, the town grew in a more orderly fashion and by the height of the second, larger rush in 1872, it was the largest inland settlement in the colony of New South Wales.

[1] The discovery of alluvial gold, readily recoverable from the clay beds of creeks and dams, brought large numbers of individual, inexperienced prospectors to the Tambaroora area.

Few miners remained to settle in the areas where they made their fortune, a tendency indicated by the small percentage of families present on many of the major fields and the sharp falls in population during times of drought or when the gold supply itself began to run out .

By the late 1860s reef exploitation had emerged as the most popular and profitable method of mining, acting as the catalyst for the second, larger gold rush of the 1870s, when Hill End reached its peak in size and prosperity.

[2][1] Public interest in Hill End resumed in the 1940s due largely to the work of several artists including Donald Friend and Russell Drysdale.

[1] The Quartz Roasting Pits are located approximately 10 km north of Hill End and comprises a pair of inverted bell shaped kilns, a battery building, a dam and the remains of two houses.

[1] Hill End is a place of national cultural significance due to its aesthetic, historic, scientific and social value to past, present and future generations of Australians.

It retains significant physical evidence of its history in its groups of early timber, earth and brick buildings within settings of remnant garden and orchard plantings.

Hill End's elevated setting above the Turon Valley, combined with its ensemble of 19th century buildings and ruins, presents an environment of contained, peaceful isolation.

Virtually every site from Tambaroora in the north to Hawkins Hill in the south can yield valuable scientific information, in particular the evolution of mining techniques and building styles.