BRIDGE STREET MALL BALLARAT, ROADWAYS PRECINCT

This precinct potentially contains archaeological remains associated with the early goldrush activity in Ballarat East. The archaeology could provide evidence associated with the significant changes that occurred in the landscape as a result of the influx of people to the area from late 1851. They flocked to the eastern side of the Yarrowee River, and a settlement formed along the mining leads. Bridge Street developed into an important commercial district and was a major thoroughfare through the town. The potential preservation of the 1850s and 1860s mining landscape is important to demonstrating the development of these chaotic goldrush areas into busy commercial districts of the 1870s. The streetscape was modified and improved throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and in the 1980s was redeveloped into a mall. These later redevelopments may not have completely removed remains of the nineteenth century landscape due to the presence of extensive amounts of fill and sludge that covered the area in the 1850s and 1860s. This inundation resulted in street levels and properties having to be raised to the current surfaces of the area.

The precinct is significant as it potentially contains buried deposits and features associated with the landscape of early goldrush town of Ballarat East. Its preservation under sludge and fill could provide physical remains that demonstrate how these marginal settlements developed and how people adapted to living in mining areas.

This precinct is significant as a potentially rare, buried gold mining landscape in Ballarat. It may also have evidence of the development of the commercial shopping centre of Bridge Street throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century.