Sovereign Hill

The site comprises over 60 historically recreated buildings, with costumed staff and volunteers, who are able to answer questions and will pose for photos.

The recreation is completed with antiques, artwork, books and papers, machinery, livestock and animals, carriages, and devices all appropriate to the era.

The idea of Sovereign Hill was floated in Ballarat in the 1960s, as a way to preserve historic buildings and to recreate the gold diggings that made the city.

It was consumed in a large fire during the 1860s and a more substantial town centre planned around Sturt and Lydiard Street in Ballarat West.

Above ground it also features steam-driven machinery for pumping water and processing the ore. More recently an attraction titled "Trapped" has been added.

This exhibit, which is set in series of above-ground concrete structures designed to look like tunnels from within, tells the story of the New Australasian Gold Mine disaster at Creswick in 1882.

A number of workshops at Sovereign Hill display traditional trades such as coachbuilder, wheelwright, tinsmith, blacksmith and farrier.