Know Your 'Hood - Golden Point, Ballarat
Know Your 'Hood - Golden Point, Ballarat
The Know Your 'Hood project mines your streets' local history memory for stories of your predecessors, their lives and preoccupations, and the changes that have given character to your neighbourhood.
Summary
The Know Your 'Hood project mines your streets' local history memory for stories of your predecessors, their lives and preoccupations, and the changes that have given character to your neighbourhood.
Description
Know Your 'Hood - Golden Point Ballarat
Click on this link to be taken to the full stories
This walk takes you through the heart of Golden Point introducing you to WW1 home front volunteers, much loved neighbourhood characters, 'everyday' people doing special things, the ravages of floods, the disappearance of a kitchen garden to collapsing mine shafts and so much more just in these few streets.
You can read the full stories in the link above and get to know your neighbourhood better.
2227 Views
Points of Interest
1. Ballarat Fire Brigade, Barkly Street - 1870s
By 1877 the Brigade was 22 yrs-old and at its annual meeting reported the need to overhaul many appliances, but also the capacity for all-night watches and the time saved with a new code of signals.
2. 'The Chinese Camp at Golden Point' - 1989
'As each year goes by the Chinese camp grows smaller...' From 2,000 men to 80 this story is of the dramatic changes in Golden Point from mining to market gardening and the loss of the Chinese village.
3. Golden Point Chinese Joss House - 1860
'The Chinese joss house ... is deserving of notice and speaks much for the artistic skill of the Chinese artisans...' The 1860 article in the story describes the joss house's interior and activities
4. The Llanberris mine
While the local landscape above ground has changed dramatically since the days of the Llanberris mine at the end of the 19th century, much the same activity continues underground.
5. Barkly Street floods 'baffles description' - 1870s
Carried in the floods all the way to Sebastopol, houses missing, paths swept away... This time of great flooding was 'so serious years must elapse before this terrible visitation can be overcome.'
6. Billy Butterfly
A generational story is described here that touches on the Chinese heritage of the area, local well-wishers and one of the great characters of Golden Point becoming a distant memory.
7. Young Street - residents' stories over the years
'Living high on bacon and eggs in Palestine', tragedy at what was number 7, and a generous local philanthropist - Young St has seen its share of action over the years.
8. Barkly St south - 'one of the prettiest bachelor homes I have seen' - 1859
A local was enamoured enough to write of the street's 'snug substantial dwellings and well-cultivated gardens' and was most taken by one home, but was not impressed with the police presence here
9. Peake Street - residents' stories over the years
From a member of the Italian Opera Company to a district bowler and a 'Lucas Girl', some of Peake Street's residents can be met in this story
10. Peake Street - immediate attention needed for public's health - 1880s
With unlit street lamps, flooding and poor drainage, works began without council approval as 'delay might be attended by serious results'.
11. Peake Street powder magazine - 1881
An enquiry into use and storage of explosives led the chairman to be 'well satisfied with the existing arrangements' at the Mt Pleasant powder magazine here. This story includes some of the evidence.
12. Sensational collapse of a kitchen garden in 1920
The Britannia mine shaft was thought secure under its concrete slab, but Mrs Reiffel's garden disappeared and large buildings were frequently affected by subsidence, 'so honeycombed is the country'.
13. 79 Barkly Street - 1925 - School holiday for 'the black veil'
13 yr old Phyllis writes of her joy at a sudden school holiday, a day-long walk in the bush around Golden Point and anticipating a win in the South Street Competition.
14. Salvation Army Prison Gate Brigade Home, Barkly Street - 1886
Brigade Homes excited interest amongst the local population. A Golden Point journalist wrote of the characters he met in the Barkly St home in an article that was reprinted in many papers in Victoria.
15. Barkly Street in World War One
At least twenty households in Barkly St contributed to the home front war effort as volunteers . They planted trees for the Avenue of Honour, raised money and worked for the Red Cross.
