Loong added to Heritage Register

BALLARAT’S processional dragon Loong has been added to the Victorian Heritage Register, recognising its cultural and historical significance.

Loong was purchased to celebrate the 60-year reign of Queen Victoria, arriving in Ballarat in 1897 and is one of the oldest surviving processional dragons in the world.

The lion head, which is likely to have been imported with the dragon, is thought to be the oldest surviving in Australia and was created in the late 19th century.

“The registration really speaks to the significance of the collections we are really privileged to have locally in Ballarat,” head of collections and curatorial at Sovereign Hill and the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections Lauren Bourke said.

“To have collections like this in a regional museum is quite phenomenal.

“He’s a living, cultural object and has a connection to the local Chinese community and the descendants right up to today.”

Loong meets two Heritage Council criteria at a state level: importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history, and possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

“He’s actually the oldest processional dragon in Australia and he’s one of the four oldest in the world; they were made before 1901,” Ballarat Historical Society president Marion Littlejohn said.

“He was commissioned by the Ballarat Chinese community in 1897, and he came out here to be in the celebration for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.

“Chinese were very community orientated; in Ballarat the Chinese community was always raising money and giving it to the hospital and they were always in all the parades and the dragon was a big feature.”

Loong’s final appearance in public was at the Begonia Festival in the 1960s.

He was then donated to the Ballarat Historical Society and all components are cared for at the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections at Sovereign Hill.

“We have an amazing professional team and facility here where he’s within accredited museum stores,” Ms Bourke said.

“We provide the environmental conditions to ensure he’s preserved for generations.”