FORMER EARLY OF ZETLAND HOTEL SITE

 The area was first mapped as allotment 5 of Section E Main Street Ballarat in the 1857 Revised Town Plan of Main Street. The Plan shows a large establishment known as Bray’s Drapery Warehouse, who sold the premises in 1857. The site is within Ballarat’s first commercial precinct and between two of the first alluvial gold fields mined in the initial rush. The site is significant as an initial gold rush commercial/ residential and an 1860s hotel Historical archaeological site card 9 establishment. The site will provide archaeological information about the occupation during the initial gold rush until the late nineteenth century. The site was occupied by W Brown in 1862 as the Earl of Zetland Hotel. In 1864 the site is described as containing six sitting rooms and twenty bedrooms. In 1872 the site was expanded to add an additional suit of bedrooms. In 1926 the hotel’s licence was not renewed due to its decapitated state. In 1940 the current structure was built, extending a single storey across the site. The site is likely to contain 2m-3m of historic fill likely preserving early gold rush structures. 

 The site is of historical and archaeological significance. 

 The site is of historical significance as the location of an early residence and commercial precinct during the years of the Victorian gold rush – one of the most significant rushes in world history. The site was occupied as the Earl of Zetland Hotel for almost 60 years and while the site would have a substantial signature. 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, and later hotel 19th-century deposits and features.