The National Hotel

This site report ‘An Archaeological Investigation of the National Hotel (H7822-0152); A

mid-19th century Roadhouse on the Calder Highway between Millet Road and South

Gisborne, Victoria.’ focuses of the history and archaeology of the Short’s National Hotel.

As well as the history of the area around it and how the National Hotel effected the

surrounding area.

The site of the National Hotel (H7822-0152) in South Gisborne, Victoria which back in the

day would have been near the main road going to the gold fields in Mount Alexander. The

first settler to own the area of land that the National Hotel would come to be built of was

William John Turner Clarke in the early 1850s when the government was subdividing the

land to encourage settlement. Before 1862 the National Hotel and the land it was on went

through quite the handful of hands the first being William Clarke on October 10 1853 who

purchased the land from the government, Clarke then sold a one acre allotment to a man

named Francis Arthur on the 3rd of May 1955. It is from this transfer document that we find

out that the Hotel was most likely already built by then because in that document Arthur

calls himself as being from the National Hotel, this is also the first documented mention of

the Hotel. The Land changes hands a couple more times until February 18 1862 when

Joshua Coop sells the Hotel property to Robert Short for 475 pounds. Robert Short had

already punched land in that area and alsoShort bought a lot of the surrounding land in

August 1864 and January 16 1865 and built a blacksmith, a metal working shop and

stables. Short also used the land as a rock quarry and as a source of water which he used
in his road building business. Robert Short was a blacksmith and engineer by trade and so

was also in the business of manufacturing his own agricultural harvesting and mowing

equipment that were of his own design. All the pieces needed to manufacture these

machines were all made on Shorts property, no part of the machines were imported. By

1864 after only two years of owning the place Robert Short was one of the very first few

people who was producing commercial machinery that had the now iconic ‘made in

Australia’ label. Short even took out an ad in the local newspaper the West Burke

Chronicle on the 29th of January 1864 advertising agricultural machinery, although it is

unclear how successful Short’s agricultural machinery business was. The Hotel had 17

rooms, 2 bars and was 48 squares. Short also made substantial changes to the kitchen,

dining room and the area behind the pub, because of damage caused by flooding. At the

time that the National Hotel was at its peak it was considers a luxurious hotel that offers a

high standard of comfort to its patrons and offered the use of its stables, blacksmith, and

metal working shop to those who were willing to pay. Robert Short fell from a ladder while

working in the Hotel on the 21st of April 1890 and later died from his injuries on the 23rd of

April 1890 at the age of 73 and his wife Letitia took over

the management of the hotel, until her death on the 23rd

of August 1903. It was then that their children John and

Anne Short took over but unfortunately John died only six

years later from tuberculosis at the age of 45 in 1909.

The Hotel it seemed had been in a state of decline for

some time for it was only two years later that the Hotel

was de-licensed. John left behind his wife Lily, six young

children and two older sisters all who were either unable

or unwilling to continue running the Pub and so did not

Letitia Short
An Archaeological Investigation of the
renew the licence. Anne and Lily Short found it National Hotel, p.9.
 The National Hotel
An Archaeological Investigation of the National Hotel, p.13.

extremely difficult to run the Hotel as well as the other family business’s. Anne Short in

1911 sold her shares of the Hotel to Lily Short, and from that point on it was only her and

her six children living there. By 1924 the Hotel was in such a bad shape that it had to be

demolished, and the building materials were used to build a family home behind where the

Hotel used to stand. From then on until the land was

sold again it was used for sheep and dairy farming. On the 1st of August 1967 John

Short’s son Lindsay Short sold the property after over a hundred years of it being owned

by the Short family. Here are two photo graphs that show the National Hotel and how it

changed from 1880 to 1911.

There are multiple reasons that this site is so important to Victoria’s cultural history, the

first and mot significant is the Gold Rush. Its significant falls under three categories the first

being Historic value, the second is Scientific value and the final one is Social value. The

Gold Rush in Victoria had a massive and positive effect on it economy. The gold found in

Victoria or more specifically near Mount Alexander bought people from all over the world,

and it was not just prospectors but tradesmen and business entrepreneurs all hoping to

make a lot of money. Within the years 1852 and 1854 around 90,000 people arrived in

Victoria. It was the Gold Rush that bought customers and money to the district of Gisborne
which allowed the National Hotel to operate. The National Hotel is significant because it

gives the people now a glimpse into the lives of the people from the Gold Rush. The site

not only tells us of the National Hotel but also of the type of Agricultural machinery was

used at that time, because of the presence of the blacksmith and metal working shop. The

Hotel was also located near the Mount Alexander Rd which was the main road to and from

the gold fields, and so was a popular spot for the miners. This site also gives us a glimpse

of what happened to the town with the decline of the Gold Rush in Victoria. As the district

did not florist as well as Melbourne did during or after the Gold Rush ended. With the

finished construction of the Mount Alexander railway and the Geelong-Ballarat railway the

use Mount Alexander Rd declined quite rapidly. Because of these factors the National

Hotel went through a slow but steady decline from the 1880s to its demolition in 1924.

The Archaeology of this site can help the people of now understand how people lived from

the 1850s and the Gold Rush and onwards. This site report goes on to in detail describe

the archaeology of the site of the National Hotel and that surrounding land, which includes

the Short house, the Blacksmith, the Stables and a waterhole. It begins by describing the

positioning of the buildings on the site. All main buildings are facing Mount Alexander Rd

and are oriented south by southwest. The foundations of for the walls are mostly “dry wall

masonry units made of bluestone” that are mostly natural or a timed exterior face. Except

the fireplaces and chimneys were made from semi dressed blocks of bluestone. There

were two types of bluestone used but both were local sourced. Two types of bricks were

also found to be present at the site. The first were hand made bricks fired at a low

temperature, they were distinctive because of their orange colour and thumb mark on the

courses and smaller size compared to the second type. The second were machine made

brick fired at a high temperature and were wound in different colours. Five different types

of pavements were found as well. The first being Pavers which are fully dressed bluestone
blocks in square or rectangular cubes. The second was Cobble Pavement which is

rounded bluestone of around 4-10 inches. The third is Angular Pavement which is bluest

blocks that are roughly arranged and around 6-10 inches in size. The fourth type of

pavement found was the Gravel Pavement which is loose bluestone around 2 inches big.

The last type of pavement was the Brick Pavement which consists of either whole bricks

placed in an orderly manner damaged bricks which are roughly placed. There were a

range of Artefacts found at this site and the major ones were Glass which came in a range

of different types such as bottles, glasses, vases, and beads. Other major artefacts found

were Ceramics which included china, porcelain, storage jars, marbles, plates and beads. A

large range of metal was also found ranging from hand tools, hours shoes, eating utensils,

machinery parts, and house fittings. An assortment of animals bones were also found from

sheep, rabbit, cow, bird, fish, and horse’s. Around 400kg of artefacts were collected on this

site and Gisborne Mains which was a site that was investigated along with the National

Hotel site.

Bibliography

-Luebbers, R 1994, An Archaeological Investigation of the National Hotel (H7822-0152); A

mid-19th century Roadhouse on the Calder Highway between Millet Road and South

Gisborne, Victoria ,Victoria, VICROADS.

-Mountford, B and Tuffnell, M 2018, A Global History of Gold Rushes, University of

California Press, Oakland.

-Moloney, D 2014,'The road to fortune': Mount Alexander road in the gold-rush. A cultural

route?’, Historic Environment, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 62-74.