Black Lead and Scotchmans Lead

Black Lead was a gold-mining village south of Ballarat, situated on the Leigh River/Yarrowee River and 3 km west of Buninyong.

It took about four years after the initial mining of alluvial gold on the Ballarat diggings for exploration for deeper gold to occur in the Buninyong district. The Black Lead was one of the first to be found (1856), and the name arose from the dark colour of the soil and rock in which the lead was worked.