Every now and again a member of the public contacts us bearing gold.
This time it is a photograph of the Ballarat Hotel, built during the heyday of Barrys Reef and thought to have gone up around 1874. The hotel stood near the Sultana mine, which is still there, roughly where the brick house with the wire fenced perimeter is today.
The last owners were the Goodge family. Mary-Jane Goodge gave up the licence at the end of 1913 and died in 1931 still holding the building. The site was later claimed by adverse possession.
The photograph matters because very few images survive of the half dozen or so hotels standing at Barrys Reef at the time, and fewer still with this clarity. It has been enhanced and colourised, which gives a far better sense of what the place actually looked like.
The man out the front is Bernard Goodge, son of Richard and Mary-Jane.
Our thanks to Marg Riordan for sharing it with us. Marg is the great granddaughter of Richard and Mary-Jane.
One footnote. Richard was also part owner of the two storey brick brewery at Barrys Reef. A photograph of that would be gold plus.
Ray Castellin