Keebles, formerly the Telegraph Hotel

St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church

The former goldmining town of Clunes in Central Victoria is located in a steep river valley on the site of the first gold rush in the state and the first large-scale reef mines. Mature deciduous trees along the creek and elsewhere have created a special character contrasting with the surrounding open basaltic plains.

The lineal and meandering commercial centre, Fraser Street, developed along the creek flat contains a sequence of restrained and consistent buildings of the 1860s and 1870s, many with original shopfronts and verandahs of a distinctive regional character. Film devotees may recognise Fraser Street as, like the railway station, it was used in one of the Mad Max films. The town has appeared in other, more recent films, including the most recent being Ned Kelly & the remake of On the Beach. Fraser Street is lined with oak and elm trees planted last cenmtury. Clunes is consequently the most intact 19th century towns in the Central Victorian Goldfields, boasting many sandstone, bluetone and brick buildings.
The Club Hotel, apparently constructed in 1870, is a two storied rendered building composed of seven main bays in a restrained classical revival design; it has a ground floor carriageway. The verandah is of particular interest because of the open balustraded deck and the sequence of French doors which provide access to the first floor. There were a number of similar verandahs in Ballarat but this remains as one of the few surviving examples. The paired columns and balustrade panels are also of note.
There are several impressive banks in the street. The former London Chartered Bank of 1871 (RSL clubrooms) designed by Leonard Terry is a two storied cement rendered building designed symmetrically about a projecting porch on Tuscan columns. The ground floor has semi-circular arched openings, while the first floor has rectangular windows with a simple flat window hood. The stringcourses, dentillated cornice andiron palisade fence provide a building of some refinement.
The prominent mannerist town hall and various churches are located in a parallel and more elevated street. The Uniting Church (former Wesleyan church, right) was built in 1864, the architect J.A. Doane. It is a gothic revival structure with random coursed basalt and elaborate cement rendered details. It is asymmetrically planned with an elaborately decorated octagonal tower with a heavy spire in patterned slates. There are also a number of important early houses surrounding these two areas.

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