The Hotel Shamrock

The Shamrock Hotel is a grand 19th century hotel in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia situated on Pall Mall, the city's main street.

The current Shamrock building is a major landmark of Bendigo and is of historic and architectural significance to the nation of Australia as a significant building and to the state of Victoria as part of a significant streetscape and collection of late Victorian buildings in a similar style.

History

The Shamrock began life in 1854, as a small hotel known as The Exchange Hotel, servicing miners during the Victorian gold rush including a Cobb and Co. office and a concert hall known as the Theatre Royal.

The hotel's patronage had grown quickly with the booming goldfields and it was renamed the Shamrock in 1855. The same year the Theatre Royal hosted to Lola Montez, performing for the diggers who threw gold nuggets at her feet, many of which the Shamrock staff took as tips while cleaning. The Bendigo Shakespeare and Literary Society also performed at the theatre from 1861.

Completely rebuilt in 1864, the Shamrock became a large hotel with two triple storey palazzo in the Victorian Regency architecture style. By this time the Shamrock had become main hotel in central Sandhurst (as Bendigo was then known) and was the accommodation of choice of visiting dignitaries to the valley's goldfields district including governor Charles Henry Darling.

A large double storey verandah was added in the 1870s.