Likeness of a miner during the Gold Rush in Ballarat displayed in the Gold Museum.
The Minerva Cropper Platen Printing Press, circa 1872, is part of the huge collection of the Sovereign Hill Museums Association.
If you have been to the Gold Museum at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, you'd be happy to know that it is transitioning to two centres of deep learning and research, the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections and the nationally significant Centre for Rare Arts and Forgotten Trades. This means that in your next visit, you will have greater accessibility to culturally significant collection, which includes Australia's most significant collections of Gold Licences and Miners Rights, one of the most complete extant Chinese temple assemblages in Australia, and a Chinese processional assemblage that includes the world's oldest known guardian lion and third oldest Imperial Dragon, among others.
The Centre will house more public access spaces for its 150,000 collection items, almost doubling the collection displace space and an increase of up to 60% more collection storage space. It will also have meeting spaces and public programs. These are exciting times for the Gold Rush Collections community.
For tourists and visitors, however, all these changes and uplift means that the Gold Museum is currently closed. It will re-open mid-year this year, though. And whilst the wait keeps you in anticipation, you can
sign up to join the Gold Rush Collections community.
Tools of the trade for a gold miner during the Gold Rush.
The vast collection of the Sovereign Hill Museums Association includes rare arts and forgotten trades.
The Gold Museum in Ballarat will transform into the Centre for Rare Arts and Forgotten Trades and the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections with bigger public spaces.
