Nerrina - White Swan
Photo: Mark Bevelander Nerrina is an outer-urban area, 6 km north-east of Ballarat. The name is believed to be derived from an Aboriginal expression and is an alternative for the original name of the Little Bendigo gold diggings (1851). In 1858 an Anglican school was opened in Little Bendigo, a small postal hamlet with several quartz crushing machines for the surrounding gold diggings. A Methodist church followed in 1865. In 1878 a government school, of Swiss-Gothic design, replaced the earlier building. Two hotels were recorded in the 1890s in the Victorian municipal directory , which estimated the population to be about 400 people. Nerrina was described in 1903 in the Australian handbook : In 1890 the population of Little Bendigo reached a peak of about 3000. As mining declined, the population dwindled. The school had 7 pupils in 1968, but after that, Ballarat’s outer-urban growth began to repopulate the district. In 2014 the Little Bendigo school had 86 pupi