Melbourne's Gold Rush Heritage: Eureka to Collins Street

Melbourne's history is defined by gold: the discovery of gold at Ballarat and Bendigo in 1851 (one year after Melbourne was declared a city) triggered the most rapid and dramatic urban transformation in Australian history, with Melbourne's population growing from 29,000 in 1851 to 280,000 by 1861 and the city's wealth underwriting the extraordinary Victorian-era public buildings (Parliament House, the Royal Exhibition Building, the Melbourne Town Hall, the State Library) that still define the city's character. Melbourne's heritage landscape reflects this golden age of the 1870s-1890s (when Melbourne was reputedly the richest city per capita in the world) and the subsequent layers of federation, industrial, and post-war development.

Royal Exhibition Building — the 1880 Royal Exhibition Building (Carlton Gardens, UNESCO World Heritage listed) is the finest surviving example of 19th century exhibition architecture in the world and the site of Australia's first Federal Parliament in 1901. The Great Hall's barrel-vaulted ceiling and the extraordinary dome are among Melbourne's most magnificent interior spaces. Museum entry includes access to the Exhibition Building. The Carlton Gardens themselves (12ha, formal European landscape design) are among the finest public gardens in Australia.

Collins Street heritage — the "Paris end" of Collins Street (between Spring and Exhibition streets) preserves Melbourne's finest concentration of Victorian and Edwardian commercial architecture, including the ANZ Gothic Bank (1883, one of Australia's finest Victorian Gothic buildings), the Block Arcade (1892, the finest surviving Victorian arcade in Australia), the Melbourne Town Hall (1870), and the Hotel Windsor (1883, the grand dame of Melbourne hotels). The Collins Street heritage walk is one of the finest short architectural tours of any Australian city.

Chinatown — Melbourne's Chinatown (Little Bourke Street, between Swanston and Exhibition) is the oldest continuously occupied Chinatown in the Western world, established during the 1850s gold rush by Chinese miners who settled in Melbourne rather than return to China. The Chinese Museum (Cohen Place) documents the Chinese contribution to Victorian history from the gold rush through to the present. The Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown are among Melbourne's finest annual cultural events.

Ned Kelly and the goldfields heritage — the State Library of Victoria (Swanston Street) displays Ned Kelly's armour (the most significant object in Australian history) in the Dome Reading Room (free entry). The Kelly story connects Melbourne's history with the Victorian Goldfields and the social tensions of colonial Australia that produced Australia's most famous outlaw.

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