FORMER LESTER’S HOTEL SITE

The site is first mapped as Allotment 1 and 2 of Section 3 on the 1852 Muniplicity of Ballarat Plan with the occupied being purchased by J. Austin. The ground is described as swampy in the 1850s. The 1861 Gold Fields Plan shows one large structure across the site, likely to be the timber structure built by Hillfling and Greig until 1859. The site contained the Rainbow Hotel (est. 1860) and other businesses.  The site was redeveloped c. 1960. There is a -1m elevation change between 1858 and 2019. Excavations within the roadway have revealed a timber bridge structure at 0.75m in depth. The site currently contains late twentieth century structures.

The site is of historical and Archaeological significance. 

The site is of historical significance as the location of an early commercial precinct in Ballarat West during the years of the Victorian gold rush. The site is significant an 1860s hotel associated with the movement of trade to Ballarat West, as well as other commercial development. The later nineteenth century shows the development and likely expansion of the hotel use of the site, described as ‘one of the best hotels in the state’. The site is of archaeological significance due to its potential to contain artefacts, deposits and features that relate to the establishment of commercial operations and the exchange hotel in the gold rush, and later 19th-century activities.