Link: Searching Ballarat Street and Suburb Names and Addresses

[ronwoods]

For anyone researching street and locality names in Ballarat, the following link should take you to an alphabetical list of locality, street and reserve names within the present City of Ballarat. 

http://www.ballarat.vic.gov.au/media/2253695/roads_and_open_space_historical_index.pdf

This document lists current and historical (and also currently proposed) names, with cross references where appropriate, together with the origin of the name and date of name change where that information is available.  The document is updated on a reasonably frequent basis.

Over a period of around 70 years, most longer streets in Ballarat were renumbered using a block system, in which numbers allocated to properties in each block increased by 100.  For example, travelling west along Sturt Street, no 1 Sturt Street is on the south-west corner of Grenville Street South, no 101 is on the south-west corner of Albert Street, no 201 on the south-west corner of Lydiard Street South, and so on.  Many Ballarat streets also have a North and a South, with the same numbers in both sections, so it's ESSENTIAL to ensure the appropriate North or South is included in addresses.

Unfortunately, except for a small number of more recent renumberings, records showing how the block numbers relate to the original numbers have been lost.  To aid research, the document also gives suggestions for finding present-day numbers for addresses shown on records that pre-date the renumbering.

Hope this helps anyone researching in the Ballarat area.

[sparrett]

Thanks Ron,
This will be a very useful link, especially for people looking at where their Ballarat ancestors lived.

Sue

[rusted]

Thanks Ron
It can be a minefield, literally. Searching for street numbers in Ballarat as well as in Bendigo and other "Gold" towns for a particular numbered property can be a real challenge.  Large sections of streets that were originally mullock heaps are now houses so the streets have had to be renumbered.
This is a good resource as it seems to have even very early place names recorded. My maternal GG grandparents lived at Gum Tree (Buninyong, near or on the Golf course) and this is the first time I have actually seen it mentioned.

[ronwoods]

When I retired in mid-2011, I had worked at the City of Ballarat for 32 years, so had a good knowledge of the city.  For the last 13 years, I was the City's Place Names Officer (among other things), so any enquiries regarding historical street and place names and addresses were directed to me.  Realising that I would not always be available (on leave and nearing retirement), I placed as much information as possible in the document to enable other staff to answer such enquiries when I wasn't around.  I researched old maps and was also given some information from local historians, to enable the document to be as complete as possible.  While this took some time that I probably should have spent doing other tasks for Council, my intention was to create something that would assist council staff and researchers into the future.  It is kept up to date by my replacement Place Names Officer.

[Jeanette H]

Well done and thank you ronwoods,
An exceptional resource, a credit to all your time and effort.

Jeanette H.

[carrey56]

Hi Ron
I have just come across this and what a great resource. I am with the Ballarat & District Genealogical Society, who do a lot of family research requests so have passed this information on to the research officer as I believe it would be a great benefit. I have told her where it has come from of course.
Great that you thought to write this knowledge down, many don't and it gets lost with time.
Carmel

[DavidG02]

.  While this took some time that I probably should have spent doing other tasks for Council, my intention was to create something that would assist council staff and researchers into the future.  It is kept up to date by my replacement Place Names Officer.

Your intentions were good and historic.

Don't worry , the other council staff needed something to do anyway 

[ilusiv]

Thanks!

[carrey56]

Hi all one way of checking number change would be to check electoral rolls to see if someone still lives in a street, from one election to another. It would be that that person has not changed address  but the number has changed. A little tedious but one way to check.