FORMER J MURPHY’S RED GATE MARINER’S STORE SITE

The site is first mapped as Allotment 3 of Section 13 on the 1852 Municipality of Ballarat Plan with the occupied being listed as Douglas. The 1861 Gold Fields Plan shows three structures across the site. In 1867 the site was occupied by John Murphy’s Mariner Store which was occupied through until 1882. In the twentieth century the site developed as general industrial site until it was redeveloped into modern structures. The Ballarat DEM shows there is an elevation increase of 1m to 2m across the site.

The site is of historical and archaeological significance

The site is of historical significance as the location of a Marine Store during the 1860s and 1870s in Ballarat West. The presence of a mariner’s store is significant as evidence of waste management and the second-hand market in the nineteenth century. 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 in Ballarat West, and later 19th-century activities and development