It can be explored on the Grade 3 track section that can be easily joined via the trailhead on Jarvis Road.
To begin to appreciate the significance of this striking outcrop, we need to reflect on the opening decades of the Spring Creek Goldfield, from 1852 up until the mid-1870s.
It took less than a year for the first wave of hopeful miners to pick over the richest ground along Spring Creek and move on in search of other rich local finds. Predictions that the field was finished however were rebutted in an 1853 article that explained that "while our numbers are certainly much diminished, the vicinity of the camp, especially in the direction of Madman's Gully is by no means depopulated."
However, this statement is particularly interesting today as it reminds us that the name Madman's Gully, was actually derived from the curious medical condition known as “gold fever”. The connection of this place with the Beechworth Asylum built on the hilltop at the rear of the gully, came later, when the building was constructed in the mid-1860s.
To produce the required three million bricks, the building constructor took advantage of the adjacent deposits of good clay, and set up a brick pit and brick kiln just down from the Clay Banks. The location of this pit was indicated on the 1871 mining map of the district.
There is possible evidence of the brick making work camp in a photo taken circa 1876. Here we can see rough huts set in the hillside beside much more substantial residences.