White Swan Reservoir
White Swan Reservoir
Evening Echo (Ballarat, Vic.: 1914 - 1918), Friday 31 December 1915, page 4
FAMOUS OLD HOUSE CLOSED.
ON EVE OF DIAMOND JUBILEE: THE WHITE SWAN HOTEL.
If it was all allowed to live a year and a day longer the White Swan Hotel, situated
in the Daylesford Road, on the verge of the Creswick State Forest, would have celebrated its diamond jubilee. This picturesque old inn was opened on New Year's Day, 59 years ago to-morrow, and during that long period the names of only two licensees have appeared over the door, the late Mr. Ritchie who opened it and who died 18 years ago, and his daughter, Miss Lottie Ritchie, the present licensee, who succeeded him. Father and daughter became inseparably associated with the old house, and they imparted to it much of their own personality, and a very kindly, lovable personality it was. The White Swan seemed to radiate hospitality, not the hospitality that is associated with roystering, reckless spending, but the sort of hospitality that Charles Dickens loved to portray in connection with the Blue Dragon, the May Pole, " Markis o Granby," and other hotels that that he has immortalised. The White, Swan was just such a place, as caused Shenstone to exclaim: " Who'er has travell'd life's dull round. Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to found think he still has the warmest welcome at an inn." The founder of the White Swan picked on a beautiful site for his hotel. It is surrounded by some of the loveliest forest country in the district. Only the road separates the forest from the front door, and one steps almost from the back door into another stretch of beautifully timbered country. It was so when the house was built, and it is so to-day. The old place strangely harmonises with its surroundings, which after all is not to be wondered at, for in truth it is part and parcel of the forest. It was built of timber cut in a sawmill close by, and after a lapse of 60 years the timber is still sound and strong. There is a moral here as to the value of Australian timber. The old house saw many ups and downs. The whole district hummed with prosperity once. That was in the alluvial mining days. Gradually peace and quietness fell on the scene, and then instead of the hustling miners there grew up round the old White Swan a colony of aged fossickers and pensioners. These in the sunset of their life found a warm and constant friend in the licensee of the White Swan. Now the White Swan is no more, that is, as a licensed house. Its diminishing trade gives the Licenses Reduction Board the excuse to put it on the list of doomed. It has fallen victim to the law of the survival of the fittest. Still, many a bigger and more pretentious hotel would leave a much smaller void.
Note: It is believed that the White Swan Reservoir was named after the White Swan Hotel which was in the vicinity of the Reservoir.
White Swan Reservoir. 14,000 ML
Opened on August 1st, 1952 by Premier McDonald at a cost of 1.5 million pounds. When announced in 1946 the original budget was 567,000 pounds. Nothing much has changed!
Second largest reservoir in the Ballarat system. Lal Lal is the largest.
Researched and compiled by Andrew Parker 2021 (Updated 2024)
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