Daylesford is a town located in the foothills of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

, within the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria,

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, approximately 114 kilometres north-west of

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. First established in 1852 as a gold mining town, Daylesford has a population of 2,781 as of the 2021 census. As one of Australia's few spa towns, Daylesford is a notable tourist destination. The town's numerous spas, restaurants and galleries are popular alongside the many gardens and country-house-conversion styled bed and breakfasts. The broader area around the town, including Hepburn Springs to the north, is known for its natural spring mineral spas and is the location of over 80 per cent of Australia's effervescent mineral water reserve. It is also the filming location for the third season of '' The Saddle Club'', and scenes from the 2004 film '' Love's Brother''.

History

Prior to European settlement, the area was occupied by the Dja Dja Wurrung people. Pastoralists occupied the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...

and Upper Loddon districts following early white settlement in 1838, and Edward Stone Parker established a farming protectorate for the Dja Dja Wurrung at Franklinford in 1841. The beginning of the Victorian Gold Rush a decade later imposed further suffering on the Dja Dja Wurrung in the area, and by 1863, most of the protectorate's survivors had been moved to the Coranderrk reserve at Healesville. In 1851, Irish immigrant John Egan and a party of searchers found alluvial gold in the bed of Wombat Creek, now covered by Lake Daylesford, initiating the local gold rush. Other finds quickly followed and a townsite was surveyed and founded in 1854, initially named Wombat but soon renamed Daylesford after the birthplace of

Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-gener ...

, the first governor-general of India. Agricultural activity followed the gold rush, with many of the Chinese in the area also operating market gardens, and Italians in particular establishing vineyards. A post office opened on 1 February 1858, and a telegraph office opened in August 1859, the same year Daylesford became a municipality. By that time, its population had risen to approximately 7,000, with around 3,400 diggers involved in mining efforts, and the town's first council was formed. Daylesford was declared a borough in the early 1860s. The alluvial gold was exhausted by then and a shift to quartz reef mining began. This continued on and off into the 1930s, though by the 1920s many miners had already departed for Western Australia. The arrival of the railway in 1881 helped to boost Daylesford's reputation as a fashionable spa resort. The town fell out of favour as a tourist destination in the

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, with visitors' interest returning in the early 1980s. On 30 June 1867, three boys from Connells Gully, near Table Hill (William Graham, 7, his brother Thomas, 4, and Alfred Burman, 5), wandered into the bush near Daylesford. Despite exhaustive searches for nearly a month after the boys' disappearance, their remains were not found until 13 September, when a farmer's dog found a boot about 10 kilometres away. Today, there is a park, a memorial cairn, and a 16-kilometre long "Lost Children's Walk" that visitors can hike. The Daylesford Primary School also has a prize, the Graham Dux Award, presented annually since 1889 in their memory. The Daylesford Magistrates' Court closed on 1 January 1990.

Climate

At above sea level, Daylesford has a cooler, wetter climate than

. Summer (January–February) temperatures range from , while July temperatures are cold, ranging from about to . Annual precipitation, occasionally falling as snow, averages about but has ranged from to over per year.

Economy

With 65 mineral springs, the Daylesford-Hepburn Springs region accounts for more than 80 per cent of Australia's known mineral water springs. As a result, the region has a number of spa developments including Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa, Mineral Spa at Peppers Springs Retreat, and the Salus Spa at Lake House. The town is also known for hosting a number of annual events, including the ChillOut Festival held during the Victorian

Labour Day Labour Day is an annual day of celebration of the labour movement and its labor rights, achievements. It has its origins in the trade union, labour union movement, specifically the Eight-hour day movement, eight-hour day movement, which advoca ...

long weekend in March each year, the largest LGBTQ festival in rural and regional Australia; the Harvest Week Festival; the Lavandula's Festivals; and the Hepburn Springs Swiss Italian Festival celebrating the town's Swiss-Italian heritage. The annual Daylesford Highland Gathering features pipes and drums, Highland heavy games, a street march, dancing and cultural food and drink, and highlights a variety of

Scottish clan A Scottish clan (from Scottish Gaelic , literally 'children', more broadly 'kindred') is a kinship group among the Scottish people. Clans give a sense of shared heritage and descent to members, and in modern times have an official structure r ...

s and local clubs. Major industries in the economy of Daylesford today are healthcare, accommodation and food, and retail trade respectively.

Education

The town is served by a number of primary schools and one public secondary school, Daylesford Secondary College. The town's Secondary College was originally established as a mining school, in 1890. In 1961 the college was established as the sole provider of secondary education in the Shire of Hepburn and has just over 500 pupils. Daylesford Primary School, formerly known as Daylesford State School, is the oldest and longest-running provider of primary education in Daylesford. Other primary schools in the area include St. Michael's Primary School and Daylesford Dharma School. Since 2010, Daylesford Primary School is host to an annual book fair where used and unwanted books are donated to raise funds that go towards improving children's literacy.

Transport

Aerial perspective of Daylesford Boathouse

The Midland Highway runs directly through the town linking it with Castlemaine in the north and

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

in the south-west. The Western Freeway is the main route linking Daylesford to

, the State Capital of Victoria. The railway to the town closed in 1978. The railway layout at Daylesford station was unusual in that the lines from Creswick and Carlsruhe both entered the station from the same end. The Daylesford Spa Country Railway currently operates a Sunday tourist service to Musk and Bullarto along the line towards Carlsruhe.

Sport

The town has an Australian Rules football team and a netball team competing in the Central Highlands Football Netball League. Daylesford is also home to the Daylesford and Hepburn United Soccer Club, also known as the Saints or the Sainters. The Saints have won four league titles in their 20-year history along with two cup finals.

Incidents

In November 2023, a car crashed into the beer garden of the Royal Daylesford Hotel, resulting in the deaths of five people. The accident has been described as "devastating" by some locals of the small town.

Notable people

* David Allison – Politician * Keith Bradbury – Politician * David Bromley (born 1960) – artist, worked in Daylesford * (Lord) Sebastian Ulick Browne – 12th Marquess of Sligo * Peter Corrigan – Architect * Josh Cowan – AFL Footballer * Bessie Lee Cowie – Temperance campaigner * Charlie Foletta – VFL Footballer * Joseph Furphy – Novelist * Jack Gervasoni – VFL Footballer * Chris Grant – AFL Footballer * Geraldine Hakewill – Actress * Lynda Heaven – Politician * John Stuart Hepburn – early pastoralist and landholder * Merv Hobbs – AFL Footballer * Simon Holmes à Court – Entrepreneur and Founder of Climate 200 * Sir Charles Hotham – Governor of Victoria * George Raymond Johnson – Architect (designed The Daylesford Town Hall) *

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

– Actor and Radio Presenter * Michael Leunig – Cartoonist * Peter Loney – Politician * Cecily Maude O'Connell – trade unionist and religious social worker * Charlie Pannam * Ambrose McCarthy Patterson – painter and printmaker * Alfred Cecil Rowlandson – Publisher * Edward Russell – Trade Unionist * Jack Stevens – Major General (

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia. It is a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army ...

) * Eugene von Guerard – Painter * Karl von Möller – Film Director and Cinematographer (15 Daly Street until 2012) *

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

– Botanist * Abigail Wehrung – Basketball Player * Carl Willis * Mark Leonard Winter – Actor

Gallery

Image:Daylesford ca1908.jpg, Daylesford circa 1908 File:2009-Jul-Daylesford- 003 (3689249371).jpg, Park in winter

References

Sources

* Daylesford Advocate, Mercury, Express, Mercury-Express. 1859-1870

External links

Information Centre/ Official regional government tourism site.
- Daylesford tourism
Daylesford
- Visit Victoria tourism
Daylesford Historical Society
– History of Daylesford {{authority control Towns in Victoria (state) Shire of Hepburn Mining towns in Victoria (state) Populated places established in 1852 1852 establishments in Australia Spa towns in Australia Tourist attractions in Victoria (state)