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RELATED: Vahland designs make a family home
Looking at a map of Central Victoria it’s easy to see how busy William Charles Vahland was more than 100 years ago.
His work stretched from over the Murray River into New South Wales, to Ballarat, Heathcote, Elmore, Benalla and other country towns.
Within Bendigo, the architect’s work is physically dotted across the city streets. There’s private homes, churches, banks, hotels, halls and other buildings.
The visionary architect laid the very foundations of modern Bendigo; designing the city out of a dusty goldfield to the architectural showpiece it is today, says Dr Dannielle Orr, City of Greater Bendigo heritage planner.
Zoom in a little more and you can see buildings are within easy walk of each other, which makes for an engaging way to explore the regions and Vahland’s works.
In the city proper there’s the Bendigo Town Hall, The Capital Theatre, the iconic Alexandra Fountain and Bendigo Health’s Anne Caudle Centre. A few blocks either way and there’s more to discover.
To mark the 100 years since Vahland’s death, the City of Greater Bendigo is encouraging residents and visitors to take a walk around the city’s stunning streets to see the legacy left by the German architect.
Five brochures with details of properties for walking or driving tours will showcase some of the public and private properties.
More than an architect Vahland nurtured the great Australian dream of home ownership more than a century ago. He was a director when the first Bendigo building society was established in 1858 and remained in the board for more than 50 years. As a founding shareholder of Sandhurst Trustees his vision was to assist ordinary citizens to buy their own home. Today, the building society is better known as Bendigo Bank and some of those homes, known as Vahland Villas, are still lived in today.
Throughout May, the city is holding a series of events to mark Vahland’s death as part of the National Trust Heritage Festival. The city, Bendigo Bank and National Trust of Australia (Victoria) aim at restoring a Vahland drinking fountain that has been in storage since early last century.
Installed in 1881, the fountain sat at the junction of Bridge Street and Pall Mall and together with the Alexandra Fountain was intended to visually balance Pall Mall by forming a triangle of fountains with the Cascades in Rosalind Park.
Used for horses, dogs and humans, the multi-faceted fountain was made of granite and featured four gas lights atop a central column and water flowed out of the mouths of four metal lions into large granite basins. There were also many decorative elements including scroll-shaped supports to connect the central column to the fountain below. The drinking fountain was dismantled in 1906 to make way for the Discovery of Gold monument that is still in place today.
“Parts of the fountain are either lost or broken and what is left has been in storage for a number of years,” Bendigo Mayor Cr Cox says. “To restore the fountain would be a win for our wonderful city, which has a glowing reputation for caring for its historical treasures.”
Cr Cox says the fountain also features granite elements made by another prominent local architect of the time, William Beebe, while local ironmonger James Connelly created the gas light fittings.
“The drinking fountain will complete the triangle of the Alexandra Fountain and the Cascades in Rosalind Park,” Dr Orr says.
“A replica of the drinking fountain has been installed in Bath Lane at the Bendigo Bank headquarters.”
The set of five Celebrate Vahland Heritage Tour brochures are available at information centres or visit www.celebratevahland.com.