The Lake Hotel: a family affair

THE Lake Hotel stood on the corner of Heathcote-Nagambie Road and the Northern Highway, Heathcote.

It was built in the mid 1850s, and at least some of the original timber structure survived until April 2018 when it was destroyed by fire.

By then it had been a private residence for some time, but its early history reveals an impressive continuity with the publican’s licence remaining in one family for 90 years.

Charles Etheredge, along with his brother Frederick, started the hotel as a partnership, with Charles becoming sole proprietor in 1860.

They had emigrated from Norfolk, England, in the early 1850s, before making their way to the McIvor diggings.

Charles worked briefly as a barman for James Hay at the Heathcote Hotel and he had previously worked for a wine and spirits merchant in England.

On 27 March 1855, the Etheredge brothers bought about 30 acres from John Dwyer for £95 and construction of the Lake Hotel began.

Charles Etheredge’s 50-year stint as licensee is remarkable for its lack of controversy.

When he died in November 1910, the McIvor Times described him as “thoroughly straightforward and of kind hearted and genial disposition.”

It noted he had a “decided objection to Sunday trading, and during his long occupation of his hotel, was never known to serve anyone with a glass of liquor on Sunday.”

Etheredge was also a Heathcote Borough councillor for a number of years and appears to have avoided any real conflict with his fellow representatives, many of whom carried on public arguments with each other for lengthy periods of time.

The immensely rich McIvor Creek Lead was discovered in 1858 and its starting point was near the Lake Hotel.

At one stage there were an estimated 10,000 miners on the ground, but very wet conditions hampered long term mining in the area.

The discovery of a 56lb (25.4kg) nugget during this rush was remembered in a series of reminiscence published in the McIvor Times in July 1910.

“The nugget was taken and put on the counter at Mr C Etheredge’s Lake Hotel,” the paper recalled.

“Mr Etheredge had a large pewter jug on the counter, broad at the bottom and narrow at the neck, and the nugget was very much like it in shape.”

Its value at the time was £2688 and it was “afterwards taken to the Bank of Victoria and exhibited there, the admission to see it being a shilling.

“A lot of money was realised, which was handed over to the Hospital.”

Charles Etheredge accumulated a number of land holdings over the years and at the time of his death owned several parcels of land, as well as houses, in Heathcote and Tooborac.

His estate was valued at more than £3100.

The licence of the Lake Hotel passed to Charles’s son Arthur, and he transferred it to his wife Caroline in 1912.

She died in 1946, at the age of 84, and the hotel was then sold to John O’Donnell in 1947.

In 1909, a small article in the McIvor Times claimed that “about 35 years ago the building became infested with white ants, and Mr Etheredge had it pulled down and rebuilt.”

But there is no mention of this in contemporary news stories and the heritage listing for the now-destroyed building dates it to the 1850s.