FORMER ‘ROBERT HARPER DEPOT’, ‘BURKES BRITISH HOTEL’ AND THE ‘PUBLIC VACCINATION OFFICE’ SITE

The site is first mapped as Allotment 5 and 6 of Section 5 on the 1852 Municipality of Ballarat Plan with the occupied being purchased by G Abel and Mc Innery. The 1861 Gold Fields Plan shows one structures across the site, likely to be the Public Office for Vaccinations. The site contained the British hotel (est. 1862) and another commercial premises to the north. The site was redeveloped c. 1922. There is a -1m to 1m elevation change between 1858 and 2019.

The site is of local historical and archaeological significance. 

The site is of historical significance as the location of the Public Office for Vaccinations during the years of the Victorian gold rush. The later nineteenth century shows the development of a hotel and commercial premises and likely expansion of the commercial and residential use of the site in the later nineteenth century. The site is of archaeological significance due to its potential to contain artefacts, deposits and features that relate to the occupation of the public office, nineteenth century commercial operations and the hotel, later 19th-century activities, and the expansion of Ballarat West.