FORMER GREAT BRITAIN HOTEL SITE

The site is first mapped as Allotment 8, 9, and 10 of Section R on the 1857 Revised Town Plan of Main Street. The site abuts an early sludge drain to the north and northeast. The site contains the remains of the former Great Britain Hotel and Union Drapery, that were both destroyed by fire and collapsed by underground mining operations. The site was likely developed as a residential commercial premises throughout the nineteenth century. The Ballarat DEM predicts approximately 1m-4m of fill across the site.

The site is of historical and archaeological significance. 

The site is of historical significance as the location of an early hotel and drapery during the years of the Victorian gold rush. The later nineteenth century shows the development and likely expansion of the commercial and residential use of the site. 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.