How Australia's Gold Kings Built a City of Mansions and Then Tore It All Down: Ballarat, Victoria.

Between 1852 and 1853, the ground under Ballarat was the richest alluvial goldfield in the world. Not one of the richest — the richest. The first prospectors were pulling up to five ounces of gold a day, and half an ounce was more than a working man earned in a week. Within six weeks of the first strike there were 20,000 men living in tents in the gullies. In 1858 a Cornish miner named Richard Jeffery put his pick into the roof of a tunnel 180 feet down and uncovered a single lump of gold weighing 69 kilograms. It was the largest ever found anywhere on earth. He wheeled it home in a barrow and hid it in his oven overnight. The men who ended up with that money built a city. Boulevards, an art gallery, a cathedral, botanical gardens beside an ornamental lake, and a mining exchange that became the wealthiest in Australia. Along every commercial street they built two storeys of cast iron verandah, block after block after block. Then, about a century later, the council ordered them all to come down. Not the buildings — those are still there, which is why Lydiard Street is considered one of the best preserved historic streets in the country. The verandahs. The National Trust fought it and won exemptions for exactly seven buildings. Everything else in the centre of Ballarat had its face stripped off. This is the story of the Eureka Stockade, the Welcome Nugget, the gold kings who built a city out of the richest ground on earth — and the good intention that took away the one thing they couldn't get back. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Richest Ground on Earth 2:52 Why Anyone Was There at All 5:24 Eureka 8:16 When the Gold Went Deep 10:31 The Welcome 14:02 Two Cities 17:29 Lydiard Street, 1888 19:38 When the Gold Ran Out 22:10 The Stripping 27:08 The Turn 28:19 What Remains SOURCES Ballarat City — Victorian Places https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/ba... History of Gold Mining in Victoria — Resources Victoria https://resources.vic.gov.au/geology-... The Welcome Nugget — Ballarat Genealogical Society https://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/... Civic Vandalism — Ballarat Heritage Watch https://ballaratheritagewatch.wordpre... Ballarat — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat