Diggers Rest Hotel

Last updated

The Diggers Rest Hotel is an early hotel on the original route to the Bendigo goldfields in the town of Diggers Rest, Victoria, Australia. It was originally built in 1854 and is one of the few Mount Alexander Road goldrush wayside hotels known to survive. A blacksmith and wheelwright shop, and also Cobb & Co stables were established behind the hotel to provide facilities for travellers.

Contents

Remains of the Diggers Rest Hotel DiggersRestHotelRuins.JPG
Remains of the Diggers Rest Hotel

The Victorian gold rushes commenced in 1851, first at Ballarat then in late December 1851, 25-30,000 diggers descended on the Mount Alexander goldfield near modern-day Castlemaine. [1] A number of shanties or sly grog shops were operating along the goldfields routes from 1851, one of which evolved into William and Thomas Gregory "Gregory's Inn" by September 1852 at a place where miners camped, appropriately called "Diggers' Rest". [2] Ex-convict William Speary took over operating the inn and then built the present Diggers Rest Hotel in 1854.' [3]

With the construction of the Bendigo railway line in 1859-62, the hotel's business declined. George Lock took over the hotel in 1883 although it was in the ownership of Misses Jane and Emma Sully around this time and up to 1892, when Lock bought the freehold and renamed it the 'Oval Hotel'.

However, between the two world wars, the development of the motor car and competition with the railway from road transport saw the hotel's fortunes revived, and the building was substantially enlarged and modified. [4] In 1938 the hotel was renovated by the new owner Mrs Cameron, in response to the growing motor traffic on the recently proclaimed Calder Highway. [5] Further alterations were made in the 1970s, with a bottleshop and cool room and a games room added and the rear parlour converted into an extended saloon bar, and a number of internal renovations occurred in the area of the ground floor lounges. One of these was the bricking up to 5 feet from the ground a door and a window, today the westernmost windows on the original building. [6]

In the 1970s it was briefly famous as the nearest hotel to the Sunbury Pop Festival site, and became the site of scuffles with police. [7]

The hotel was partly destroyed by fire in October 2008, [8] leaving only the walls and chimneys standing. Since the fire there have been separate campaigns in the local community to have the hotel rebuilt and reopened, or demolished. [9]

The novel The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin won the Ned Kelly Awards for crime writing in 2011.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eureka Rebellion</span> 1854 miners revolt in Victoria, Australia

The Eureka Rebellion was a series of events involving gold miners who revolted against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and the colonial forces of Australia. The fighting resulted in an official total of 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels. There was a preceding period beginning in 1851 of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience on the Victorian goldfields. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castlemaine, Victoria</span> City in Victoria, Australia

Castlemaine is a small city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The population at the 2021 Census was 7,506. Castlemaine was named by the chief goldfield commissioner, Captain W. Wright, in honour of his Irish uncle, Viscount Castlemaine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victorian gold rush</span> Period in the history of Victoria, Australia

The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capital for Melbourne, which was dubbed "Marvellous Melbourne" as a result of the procurement of wealth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diggers Rest, Victoria</span> Suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Diggers Rest is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 33 km (21 mi) north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Hume and Melton local government areas. Diggers Rest recorded a population of 5,669 at the 2021 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calder Highway</span> Highway in Victoria

Calder Highway is a rural highway in Australia, linking Mildura and the Victoria/New South Wales border to Bendigo, in North Central Victoria. South of Bendigo, where the former highway has been upgraded to freeway-standard, Calder Freeway links to Melbourne, subsuming former alignments of Calder Highway; the Victorian Government completed the conversion to freeway standard from Melbourne to Bendigo on 20 April 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victorian Goldfields Railway</span> Tourist railway in Victoria, Australia

The Victorian Goldfields Railway is a 1,600 mm broad gauge tourist railway in Victoria, Australia. It operates along a formerly disused branch line between the towns of Maldon and Castlemaine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maldon, Victoria</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Maldon is a town in Victoria, Australia, in the Shire of Mount Alexander local government area. It has been designated "Australia's first notable town" and is notable for its 19th-century appearance, maintained since gold-rush days. At the 2016 census, Maldon had a population of 1,513.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buttlejorrk, Victoria</span> Cadastral in Victoria, Australia

Buttlejorrk is a parish of the County of Bourke located to the west of Sunbury, in Victoria, Australia and a neighbourhood within the locality of Diggers Rest. It was named in 1839 by the surveyor William Darke. A township developed and was initially known as Aitken's Gap. By the 1890s it had commonly become known as Buttlejorrk. A Post Office opened on 5 September 1856 as The Gap, was renamed Buttlejork (sic) in 1875 and closed in 1919. One of the early settlers in the area was George Millett. George and his wife Suzanne established the Bald Hill Hotel, the first staging stop out of Melbourne on the road to the goldfields at Bendigo. The hotel was licensed in 1853 until 1907. The Aitken's Gap Gaol, now located in the forecourt of the Sunbury Police Station stood beside the hotel

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackwood, Victoria</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Blackwood is a rural village in Victoria, Australia. The township is located on the Lerderderg River, 89 kilometres north-west of the state capital, Melbourne, within the Wombat State Forest. Blackwood is in the Shire of Moorabool local government area and had a population of 387 at the 2021 census.

The Ballarat Reform League came into being in October 1853 and was officially constituted on 11 November 1854 at a mass meeting of miners in Ballarat, Victoria to protest against the Victorian government's mining policy and administration of the goldfields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Macpherson Grant</span> Australian politician

James Macpherson Grant was an Australian solicitor who defended the Eureka Stockade rebels and a politician who was a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and the Victorian Legislative Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chewton, Victoria</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Chewton is a town in central Victoria, Australia in the Shire of Mount Alexander local government area, 116 kilometres north west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2016 census, Chewton had a population of 1313.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shire of Bulla</span> Local government area in Victoria, Australia

The Shire of Bulla was a local government area about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of 422.17 square kilometres (163.0 sq mi), and existed from 1862 until 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campbells Creek, Victoria</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Campbells Creek is a town in Victoria, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo</span> Building in Bendigo, Vic

The Shamrock Hotel, currently trading as Hotel Shamrock, is a grand 19th-century hotel in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, situated on Pall Mall, the city's main street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timor, Victoria</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Timor (/ˈtaɪˈmɔː/), also known as Timor-Bowenvale, is a mainly rural area in the Central Goldfields Shire of Victoria, Australia. It is located 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of Maryborough, Victoria and 178 kilometres (111 mi) northwest of Melbourne, the state capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian gold rushes</span> Mass movement of Australian workers to places rumored to have gold (1851–1910s)

During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Crow goldfield</span> Australian nineteenth-century gold mine

The Jim Crow goldfield was part of the Goldfields region of Victoria, Australia, where gold was mined from the mid- to the late-nineteenth century.

Strangways is a locality within the local government area of Mount Alexander, in Central Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of 20.105 square kilometres between the townships of Guidford to the east, Newstead to the north-west and Clydesdale to the south.

The following is a timeline of the Eureka Rebellion.

References

  1. Serle, Geoffrey, The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria 1851-1861 (MUP, Carlton, 1968), p.23
  2. William Ottey, in Castlemaine Pioneers, op cit, p.56
  3. Batey, Isaac, untitled typed manuscript (RHSV, 27/1/1910), pp.48-49
  4. David Moloney, Shire of Melton Heritage Study, 2007
  5. The Melton Express, 12/11/1938.
  6. D. Graeme Lumsden Ashton and Hale, Architects: 'Alterations and Additions to Oval Hotel Diggers Rest for Diggers Rest Hotel Pty Ltd', May 1971 (Shire of Melton No.3717)
  7. "Bravenet Web Services".
  8. "Melton Leader 30 Oct 08, by Andrew Jefferson and Billy Crossland". Archived from the original on 2 July 2011. Retrieved 10 January 2013.
  9. "Melton Leader 9 Dec 11, by Liam McAleer". Archived from the original on 19 February 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2013.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Diggers Rest Hotel at Wikimedia Commons

37°38′07″S144°43′36″E / 37.6352°S 144.7266°E / -37.6352; 144.7266