FORMER OLIVER BROTHERS WATCHMAKERS AND SMITH & GARTH BOOTMAKERS SITE

The site is first mapped on within Little Bridge Street, and was sold as Allotment 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Section H. The 1857 E, F and H Revised Town plan, shows four structures fronting bridge street and a shed to the southwest of the site. The Oliver Brothers are listed at allotments 6 and 5 from 1857 until 1868, and Ralph and Garth Bootmakers are listed from 1857 to 1863. The site shows 1m-2m of fill across the site, likely capping early gold rush deposits under the roadway. 

The site is of historical and archaeological significance. 

The site is of historical significance as the location of an early watchmaker, bootmakers and residential property during the years of the Victorian gold rush. The later nineteenth century shows the development of the township of Ballarat and Ballarat East. 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