From its initial gold find in 1851, the area produced 27 per cent of Victoria's gold by the turn of the century. The initial fields to be exploited were the alluvial fields of Ballarat East. In the years following, the rich leads buried under the Sebastapol Plateau were to produce enormous yields. The resulting need for heavy machinery meant a growth in local industries such as Cowley's Eureka Iron Works and mining suppliers like The Phoenix. These manufacturing concerns created a permanence for Ballarat.
Ballarat is also known as 'the city of statues'. The Botanical Gardens have a fine classical collection donated by gold mining entrepreneurs. The Flight From Pompeii, and Spring. Autumn, Winter, Hebe, Leda and Pomona grace these gardens. The Prime Ministers' Avenue is updated with a new bust to record each incoming Prime Minister of Australia.
While you are here make sure you visit the magnificent Craig's Royal Hotel. Mark Twain and Prince Alfred once slept here. Today you can enjoy its colonial authenticity, as you can at Ballarat Terrace where gracious accommodation is offered in the renovated Victorian terrace home. Surrounding Ballarat are further attractions like the famous Yellowglen Vineyards. Don't miss the Wallace Cheesery and the Yuulong Lavender Estate.
Eureka Stockade Event
Sovereign Hill
Ballarat is also home to the delightful Sovereign Hill - a faithful and fascinating re-creation of an old gold mining town of the 1850s. It is located on the site of the former Sovereign Quartz Mining Company. Here you can see township bakers demonstrate colonial breadmaking, a smithy showing how horseshoes are made, an old fashioned printer producing a newspaper and pan for real gold. You can visit the mining museum and discover the process of obtaining gold from quartz. At night, the sound and light performance Blood on the Southern Cross encapsulates the Eureka story.
Opposite lies the Gold Museum where the history of this magic metal has been captured and detailed. Nearby, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery houses early and contemporary Australian art. Here, such finely regarded artists as Eugene Von Guerard, William Dobell, Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale chronicle the history of early Ballarat and Australia. You can also see the Eureka Flag donated by the widow of a trooper who fought at the Eureka Stockade.
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
At the Gallery at Castlemaine you can see Frederick McCubbin's Golden Sunlight which was donated by Dame Nellie Melba. You can also admire the works of Tom Roberts and E. Phillips Fox who underline the importance of the Heidelberg School in the development of Australian art. And that is not to mention the several Margaret Preston's you will discover here.
Collectively the three Victorian art galleries in Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine hold some of Australia's key art pieces and other works which portray early regional scenes are valuable historical references and certainly worth noting. You will discover many outdoor works of art in Ballarat which also mark the exuding confidence of the goldrush.
Botanical Gardens
Imposing trees and perfect lawns covering 40 hectares surround Lake Wendouree. Many of the trees you'll see are over 120 years old and feature on the National Trust's Register of Significant Trees. The gardens are famous for their begonias and the town hosts an annual begonia festival. Another attraction of this festival is the splendid floral carpet made from over 100,000 fresh flowers.
The Town
The most complete nineteenth-century streetscape is probably along Lydiard Street, which runs from the centre up past the train station; the street has several two-storey terraced shopfronts, with verandahs and decorative iron-lace work, mostly from the period 1862–89. The former Mining Exchange (1888) has been recently renovated to its former splendour, and the architecture of Her Majesty’s Theatre (1875) also proclaims its goldrush-era heyday.
The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery at 40 Lydiard St (daily 10.30am–5pm; $4; guided tours Mon–Fri 2pm, Sat & Sun 2.30pm), another superb building, is the oldest provincial art gallery in Australia, established in 1884. Its extensive collection is particularly strong on colonial and Heidelberg School paintings; the original Eureka Flag – tatty and ragged – is also here. Displayed alongside are the watercolours of S.T. Gill, a self-taught artist who painted scenes of goldrush days in Ballarat. In another part of the gallery is a reconstruction of the drawing room of the famous Lindsay family (whose best-known members are the artist Norman Lindsay and the writer Jack Lindsay), from nearby Creswick, complete with several of their paintings. There’s also a representative modern collection and a good café. Nearby, on Sturt Street, check out the imposing Classical-revival town hall, which dominates the centre.
There are still over fifty hotels in Ballarat – survivors of the hundreds that once watered the thirsty diggers. Some of the finest are on Lydiard Street: Craig’s Royal Hotel at no. 10 and the George Hotel at no. 27 are an integral part of Ballarat’s architectural heritage. Sadly, during the 1970s, the council forced most of the old pubs to pull down their verandahs on the grounds that they were unsafe, so very few survive in their original form. One that does is attached to the Golden City Hotel, 427 Sturt St, which took the council to the Supreme Court to save its magnificent wide verandah with original cast-iron decoration; the hotel is now open at weekends as a bar and is appreciatively packed out in summer.