FORMER PATTERSON BUTCHER AND GROCER SITE

The area was first mapped as allotments 8, 9 and 10 of Section C Main Road Ballarat in the 1857 Revised Town Plan of Main Street. The site contained two structures, sheds, and three cesspits. There is also a whim mapped to the north of the site. The site is within Ballarat’s first commercial precinct and between two of the first alluvial gold fields mined in the initial rush. The site is significant as an initial gold rush commercial residential and ironmongery site and will provide archaeological information about the occupation of high turnover premises throughout the later nineteenth century.   

The site is of historical and archaeological significance. 

The site is of historical significance as the location of an early residence and ironmonger during the years of the Victorian gold rush – one of the most significant rushes in world history. The site is of archaeological significance due to its potential to contain artefacts, deposits and features that relate to the establishment of commercial operations in the gold rush, and other later 19th-century activities.