Early restoration works are underway to care for an almost-90-year-old feature in the Arch of Victory precinct commemorating all in the district who served in WWI.
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Fences are up to begin the $40,000 preservation efforts on the Memorial Wall Rotunda, which sits at the foot of the Arch of Victory, near the Cuthberts Road roundabout.
The rotunda features an alphabetically listed Roll of Honour with plaque numbers of service men and women who are featured in the 22-kilometre Avenue of Honour.
This comes 30 years after the rotunda was shifted from near Ballarat Golf Club to the Memorial Wall site in 1993. It has since become a spot to highlight pipers or buglers in commemorative services by the arch.
The rotunda was constructed in 1938.
Ballarat builder and preservation specialist PFB Building is undertaking the conservation works, which the Arch of Victory/Avenue of Honour Committee has long championed, due to weather effects.
Works will include cleaning, repairing render, waterproofing and repainting - all approved by Heritage Victoria with a heritage permit exemption.
Funding for the works are via City of Ballarat, the committee and with support from the Haymes Foundation.
The Courier understands restoration works to replace trees further up the Avenue of Honour in Burrumbeet, between Bo Peep Road and Lake Burrumbeet Caravan Park (Cassidy's Road), remain ongoing with some plaques still to be reinstalled.
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This project, which started in late March, has focused on replacing 70 trees - 68 poplars and two English elms - each deemed to be at the end of their life, in decline or to have structural issues.
Trees will be replaced by 30 hybrid oaks and 40 pin oaks, in line with the Avenue of Honour's conservation management plan allowing for similar European large canopy deciduous trees.
These works follow a ceremony in October 2022 to mark the replanting of more than 50 trees after storm damage in late 2021 in the Weatherboard section of the avenue, north of the Western Highway.
Ballarat's Arch of Victory is the largest commemorative arch in Australia and marks the beginning to the nation's longest commemorative Avenue of Honour. Memorial trees represent the 3801 service men and women from Ballarat who enlisted in WWI.
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