Soldiers Hill

Soldiers Hill is a suburb immediately north of central Ballarat. Its boundaries are Howitt Street (north), Havelock Street (east) and the railway line (south and west). It was named after the military encampment, adjoining the goldfield commissioner, from where soldiers marched on 3 December 1854 to suppress the Eureka miners' rebellion. The actual location of the encampment was at the corner of Lydiard and Mair Streets (Ballarat central), south of the present suburb.

Upon crossing the railway line Lydiard Street rises and is named Lydiard Street North. Several of Ballarat's wealthier citizens chose the rising topography for their houses. There were also several hotels, among which the North Star (1850s-) at Lydiard/Nolan Streets is a notable example. Presbyterian, Wesleyan and Catholic schools opened in the late 1850s. At the very south of the suburb, the Ballarat West railway station was opened in 1856, adding over the decades a large locomotive and workshops complex. It soon became Ballarat's central station, and the Ballarat East station was reduced in importance. The railway complex is heritage listed.

Presbyterian and Catholic churches are in Lydiard Street, the latter with a Spanish Mission style building (1940). The Uniting (Wesleyan) and Anglican churches each have George Fincham organs (1890, 1891). From the various church schools there emerged the Macarthur Street government school (1878). St Columba's primary school in Armstrong Street was opened in 1912, just east of the Ballarat North bowls club (1897).

Soldiers Hill's houses are a mixture of single fronted cottages built in the first half of the twentieth century, or earlier, some more elaborate buildings and some recent townhouses or similar dwellings.

Soldiers Hill's census populations have been: