Soldiers Hill is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located directly north of the Central Business District. At the , Soldiers Hill had a population of 2,813.
Named Soldiers Hill during the first residential land sales in 1859 in honour of the Colonial forces of Australia 40th Regiment who were stationed there prior to the battle of the Eureka Rebellion and the Eureka Stockade riot, it is the earliest planned suburb of Ballarat.
Soldiers Hill is an important heritage area in Ballarat and the entire suburb is covered by a City of Ballarat Heritage Overlay. It has a substantially intact Victorian era architectural character, with many of its buildings featuring an abundance of period detail including distinctive decorative cast iron ornament.
Geography
Soldiers Hill covers a relatively small area bounded by the Mildura Railway Line to the west, the Serviceton Railway Line to the south, Havelock Street and the Yarrowee River to the east and Howitt Street to the north and is primarily residential.
The "hill" is a schist composed of hard granites and quartz, part of a granite ridge which extends south and west from Lydiard Street and forms a plateau to the south and west. In stark contrast to neighbouring Black Hill and Golden Point Hill across the Yarrowee valley scarred by extensive gold mining, Soldiers Hill, this plateau was found to bear little gold. Though it did not escape deformation and the historic peak between Macarthur and Clarendon Street was progressively levelled from around the turn of the century creating a new peak further to the north on Ligar Street between Marcarthur and Chisolm Street. A natural escarpment forms its southern edge which has been accentuated by the flattening of land to the south for the construction of the railway reserve. The hill slopes to valleys in the east and west of the suburb's borders through which small seasonal creeks flow. The Gnarr Creek for most of its length little more than an urban stormwater drain, winds its way through the suburb's north, crossing the railway reserve at Little Clyde Street to the west. The eastern border slopes to the valley of a small unnamed natural watercourse that flowing into the Yarrowee from the north.
History
Before European settlement, the area around Soldiers Hill was populated by Wathaurong people, an Indigenous Australian tribe. The hill itself was a steep escarpment that formed part of a greater range and was a schist of quartz and tall stringybark trees.
William Cross Yuille was the first settler of what was originally named "Commanding Hill". Yuille had been well established in the region and had erected a shepherd's hut (in addition to his first hut located at Lake Wendouree) in the location marked by the current crossing of Seymour Street and Armstrong Street Nth. This hut existed as early as October 1851 being the only building on the hill at the time of William Swan Urquhart's first town plan for Ballarat, following the initial Ballarat gold rush. The hill was not subdivided in the first plan, though was part of the Grenville County. Later 1850s plans would include Soldiers Hill as one of the first planned suburbs of Ballarat with a grid plan north of the steep escarpment and Yarrowee River gully.
In 1853, on the hill was established one of the first of Ballarat's major schools, the national school, with 450 enrolments in its first year.
Colonial forces of Australia 40th Regiment were stationed on the hill prior to the Eureka Rebellion of 1854. Leading them were Robert Nickle and Edward Macarthur, after whom Macarthur Street was named.
In 1857, the first permanent buildings were constructed along Seymour Street, including the North Star Hotel and Huff Bakery, along with a new school known simply as the "Soldiers Hill School" constructed by the Presbyterian Church.
In 1859, the first residential allotments were subdivided and sold, with the estate extending to Macarthur Street at the northern boundary. After Webster Street and Sturt Street, this estate was considered one of Ballarat's premier addresses.
Religious congregations established themselves at the highest point of the hill along with the large homes of the wealthy while middle class cottages and industry sprang up closer to the railway station. A new school, Macarthur Street Primary was constructed in 1877 and officially opened on 31 May 1878, replacing the Soldiers Hill School with an initial enrolment of 650 students.