FORMER MAIN STREET COMMERCIAL PRECINCT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Main Street was well-established by 1858. It had a number of flourishing businesses including but not limited to butchers, restaurants, general stores, clothing stores, hotels, and theatres. The businesses of Main Street depict Ballarat as a multicultural center that can inform us about the mass migration event that occurred for the Victorian gold rush.
The archaeology of Main Street is believed to 6ft to 11ft in parts due the cutting of Victoria and Lydiard Street and sludge layers from the multiple flood events which occurred. The archaeology should be well-preserved and contain an array of material culture from different stores and people of different ethnicities. It will provide a wealth of information about life in Ballarat during the gold rush.

The site is of historical, cultural, and archaeological significance. 

The site is historically significant as the site of the first Main Street in Ballarat from 1851. From the perspectives of mass migration during the goldrush the site contains historical fabric, associations and meanings that are vital to the understanding of early globalization in southern Australia.

The Site has archaeological significance due to its potential to contain relics relating to the historic occupation of the site. The site has high potential to contain buried structures, features and deposits. Gold mining sites are of importance for the role they have played since 1851 in the development of Victoria. The archaeology of Main Street has the potential to inform of life in Ballarat in the 1850s and 1860s and the types of people and cultures that were present and how they integrated.