Gothic fernery a time capsule

A HOMAGE to the Botanical Gardens’ history has opened to the public to coincide with this year’s Begonia Festival, with the ribbon cut on the Gothic fernery building.

The original structure was demolished in 2019 and with its adjacent frame going to ruin, City of Ballarat mayor Cr Daniel Moloney said the opening will allow people to see where the new design is headed.

“We’re making the fernery accessible to people so they can actually see the potential for the fernery,” he said.

“They can see the first stage complete and what it could like as you walk through, to future stages of the project.

“To have a reminder of our past and a reminder of the importance of the Begonia Festival here as part of the fernery redevelopment, I think it’s really quite exciting.”

The opening is the part of the $1.7 million first stage of the site’s redevelopment, and although the structure currently holds minimal plants, an assortment of flora will be added as part of stage two.

Landscaping works will soon see extensions to the fernery with footpaths connecting to several locations across the garden’s precinct.

The outlines of the next stages will be decided within the next few months, and will potentially involve an additional structure to compliment the new one.

The Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens acting president Robert Selkirk said the group is excited for people to be able to be reintroduced to a piece of the city’s history.

“We have been waiting for a period of probably 20 years now for all this to happen,” he said.

“Everybody who’s lived in Ballarat is very familiar with the old fernery, and it’s really part of Ballarat and part of the Botanical Gardens particularly.”

The revived fernery features two pictures at its Wendouree Parade entrance, one of its original 1800s incarnation, and the other of its steel frame counterpart.