- [Narrator] Lydiard Street's award-winning bookshop
holds many engaging stories.
Classics, mysteries, romance.
Epic tales of adventure.
But perhaps the most interesting story
and certainly the most relevant
to this site is the story of the building itself.
There were a number of really early settlers here
or early gold seekers here
that were quite successful on the goldfields.
And as time moved on, you know, decade or two,
they decided it would be really nice to get together
and have some dinners and reunions.
The heritage-listed building is home
to the Old Colonists' Association of Ballarat,
a philanthropic body that gathered
and worked for the good of the gold miners of the area.
The origins of the organisation start back in 1867
when there was a get together organised
by James Oddie to celebrate 16 year anniversary
of the founding of gold at Poverty Point.
That was a social occasion.
And over the years, it developed into a number
of other organisations.
And in 1883 is actually the formal start
of the Old Colonists' Association.
They hired an architect who had recently arrived
from New Zealand, Arthur George Leg.
He was hired to design a building,
a hall upstairs, and downstairs was shops.
The foundation stone was laid
on Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887.
And subsequent to that, the hall was opened in 1888.
When you go delving into history,
there's so much that you realise you don't know.
I think that the really fantastic thing
about those shops down the front
is that the people that designed this building
had the foresight to put four shopfronts at the front
that were going to create an income
for the organisation.
Over the years,
the shops in the building have had a number
of different uses and tenants.
So there's been a variety of shopkeepers in there
from tobacconists, drapers, jewellers,
and, believe it or not, an oyster and fish bar.
Which is probably
the most unusual occupation that was there.
We lost our tenants, the tenants left.
There was R.F. Scott, the gun people, and a nightclub
and we lost them.
So we decided that we needed to, you know,
refurbish the building itself, inside anyway.
Once everything's removed, all of a sudden,
you realise the expanse of the building
but old buildings need work.
And when they vacated, we realised some work had to be done.
As if it knew it was about
to become a bookstore,
the building started to give up its stories
as more renovations were done.
I was really keen to get in when the floorboards came up
because what is hidden is usually the most interesting.
And it can often tell you the most about a number of things.
So I really came to see what was underneath the floor.
And, to my delight, I saw blue stone foundations
and it does appear that they are recycled blue stone
from that early Mining Registrar's office.
And there were some also some oyster shells.
The oyster bar, my understanding,
is that they came from Sydney or Brisbane
and the fish came from Port Fairy
or one of the ports down on the other side of Geelong.
The surprises we got were
that the floors were totally had it.
So two of those shops have
had their floors pulled up completely
and all new sub floors.
And what we're able to do with one of them,
we put completely new joists and bearers in one of them.
And we saved as much material as we could out
of two of them.
And on one of them has now got some new and some old
but most of the old.
Sort of made up one out of two
Under the floorboards,
I found a lot of little bottles that they kept,
the Old Colonists' kept.
We found a beautiful piece of wallpaper.
We think were the 30s in this room.
We found at the front some silkscreen
and we found a piece of wallpaper that we have framed.
And we found an old newspaper about 1916.
Two of the original shopfronts
had been removed and replaced with aluminium fronts,
an attempt to allow light into the shop.
Recreating the original windows was one
of the most important aspects of the renovation
and the most challenging.
Lydiard Street is, you know, the most heritage
intact street in Australia.
The fact that this is an 1888 building
and the fact that it was the most beautiful looking,
you know, shopfronts, even bar the windows being fixed.
The fronts on them were 1950s or 60s aluminium shopfronts,
which looked terrible.
It wasn't in sympathy with the building.
It took me a nearly 12 months to try
and find a company that actually manufactured
the material to make the new shopfronts.
And what it is.
It's a timber moulding, and then they clad it
with material that you want it to be clad with.
In, in our case, I think it was antique brass.
I think that's what it's called.
And then we got Central Joinery and Alan Phelps
and David Young to actually put it all together for us.
And it's a heck of a job to do
because just making those windows
with timber mouldings is pretty intricate.
But to make it worse, it's got a metal cover on it.
So it really is an intricate job to do.
The only thing you'll see is the ones
that we've replaced have got a little name plaque on there
to say that it was done by a Central Joinery.
Because the original window has got J.H. Brown Ballarat
on it in the old sort of style.
You know, that was the original builder
of the original window.
The restoration gained an award
at the Heritage Awards, which brought a fair bit
of publicity to the club and to the prospective tenant.
It's always good to see old buildings restored
and we're more than happy for that to have happened.
It really is a buzz,
to have started off with what we had.
And then to see the boys build them all
and then finish them.
It really is.
Quite proud of it, to be honest.
The outcome is absolutely spectacular.
When it was first unveiled,
everyone was walking around saying,
have you seen the Old Colonists'?
And that was really gratifying 'cause we love our building.
We love our street, but it was great
that people were recognising
that we were really trying to care for it
and reinstate what we could
to keep that Victorian streetscape intact.
When we first started this venture
we never actually knew how it was going to end.
I mean, it was our dream
but we never knew whether it would fit into, you know,
what other people really expected
of a bookstore in Ballarat.
But it's been probably the best thing we've ever done.
It's been like a dream come true, to be honest.
There's always something else that we either have to do,
or would love to do.
To make sure that we are doing the right things
and that we are protecting the real historical fabric
of this building.
The Old Colonist's still maintain
their philanthropic work.
I think the link to the community and visitors
is the heritage,
the date of the buildings.
Back dating from the boom that occurred
in the goldfields period,
the magnificent buildings.
It brings tourists to the town.
It gives you a sense of past, where you've come from,
and hopefully where are we going to go to.