BALLARAT SCHOOL OF MINES (FEDERATION UNIVERSITY AUSTRALIA)

The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) on a site of approximately 2.8 hectares in Ballarat Central, including buildings, subterranean fabric, and landscape area. These include but are not limited to the Buildings 'C' (Old Chemistry Building); 'P' (Unistyle Hairdressing Building); 'A' (Administration Building); 'B' (W. J. Gribble Building); 'D' (portions of gaol buildings, walls and the courtyard they surround); 'E' (portions of gaol buildings, walls and the courtyard they surround); 'F' (former Supreme Court); 'O' (Old Plumbing Building); 'J' (A. W. Steane Building); 'L' (Flecknoe Building); 'N' (E. J. Barker Building); deep-lead mining tunnels below Building 'P'; bluestone 'former gaol culvert' to the west of Building 'F'; gaol basement spaces and fabric below Building 'G' (E. J. T. Tippett Building); tunnel between Buildings 'F' and 'E'; former Model Mine shaft to immediate east of Building 'C'; Former Junior Technical School's Memorial Garden; Norfolk Island Pine and Canary Island Palm trees within the Former Botanic Garden; the area of the Former Botanic Garden itself (also known as 'System Garden' or 'Von Mueller Garden'); and the terraced layout of the Former Gaol Produce Garden area. 

The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) is of architectural and historical significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register: 

Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria's cultural history. 

Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects. 

Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) is significant at the State level for the following reasons: 

The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) is historically significant as the oldest remnant of a school of mines in Victoria and in Australia. Its association since 1870 with a curriculum featuring in turn mining, art and technical education, university education and vocational training is evident in documentary resources and in the diverse physical fabric of the place. The Victorian, Federation, inter-war and early post-WWII institutional buildings of the complex collectively demonstrate its transformation in parallel with Ballarat's development from burgeoning goldfields township into a regional city. The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) has a clear association with the process of goldfields mining and engineering educational institutions evolving into centres of further education. This association is understood better at the Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) than at most other places in Victoria with substantially the same association. [Criterion A] 

The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) is architecturally significant and demonstrates most of the principal characteristics of the class of further education campuses since the 1870s. It is a notable example of the class as demonstrated through its combination of purpose built and adapted buildings featuring a range of construction eras and built forms and spread over a diverse topography. The Ballarat School of Mines (Federation University Australia) also includes fine two-storey brick and rendered buildings along the former School of Mines' boundary on Lydiard Street South which contrast with buildings constructed at later periods across the balance of the campus. [Criterion D]