Hollybush

Hollybush was a mining town east of the Woady Yaloak River, 40 km south-west of Ballarat. Although it had a census population of 558 people in 1901, the name has completely fallen away: it is unrecorded in the Australian and Victorian gazetteers (1975 and 1983) and the Victorian roads country directory (1992 or later editions). The last mentioned book shows Glenfine Road, named after Hollybush’s Glenfine and New Glenfine mines.

Although there had been gold mining along the Woady Yaloak River valley since the 1860s, there was an intensification of activity south of Cape Clear in the late 1890s and the creation of several new mining townships. Hollybush was one of them. A school was opened in 1899, and it included a night school for technical instruction of mine workers. Within ten years, however, the best of the mining years had passed, and the school closed in 1909.

Hollybush’s census populations were: