Diggers Rest railway station

Diggers Rest (formerly Diggers' Rest) is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 33 km (21 mi) north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Hume and Melton local government areas. Diggers Rest recorded a population of 5,669 at the 2021 census.Diggers Rest lies on the Old Calder Highway, near the Calder Freeway.

The Diggers Rest Hotel is an early hotel on the original route to the Bendigo goldfields in the town of Diggers Rest, Victoria, Australia. It was originally built in 1854 and is one of the few Mount Alexander Road goldrush wayside hotels known to survive. A blacksmith and wheelwright shop, and also Cobb & Co stables were established behind the hotel to provide facilities for travellers. The Victorian gold rushes commenced in 1851, first at Ballarat then in late December 1851, 25-30,000 diggers descended on the Mount Alexander goldfield near modern-day Castlemaine. A number of shanties or sly grog shops were operating along the goldfields routes from 1851, one of which evolved into William and Thomas Gregory "Gregory's Inn" by September 1852 at a place where miners camped, appropriately called "Diggers' Rest". Ex-convict William Speary took over operating the inn and then built the present Diggers Rest Hotel in 1854.'With the construction of the Bendigo railway line in 1859-62, the hotel's business declined. George Lock took over the hotel in 1883 although it was in the ownership of Misses Jane and Emma Sully around this time and up to 1892, when Lock bought the freehold and renamed it the 'Oval Hotel'. However, between the two world wars, the development of the motor car and competition with the railway from road transport saw the hotel's fortunes revived, and the building was substantially enlarged and modified. In 1938 the hotel was renovated by the new owner Mrs Cameron, in response to the growing motor traffic on the recently proclaimed Calder Highway. Further alterations were made in the 1970s, with a bottleshop and cool room and a games room added and the rear parlour converted into an extended saloon bar, and a number of internal renovations occurred in the area of the ground floor lounges. One of these was the bricking up to 5 feet from the ground a door and a window, today the westernmost windows on the original building.In the 1970s it was briefly famous as the nearest hotel to the Sunbury Pop Festival site, and became the site of scuffles with police.The hotel was partly destroyed by fire in October 2008, leaving only the walls and chimneys standing. Since the fire there have been separate campaigns in the local community to have the hotel rebuilt and reopened, or demolished.The novel The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin won the Ned Kelly Awards for crime writing in 2011.

Sunbury Pop Festival or Sunbury Rock Festival was an annual Australian rock music festival held on a 620-acre (2.5 km2) private farm between Sunbury and Diggers Rest, Victoria, which was staged on the Australia Day (26 January) long weekend from 1972 to 1975. It attracted up to 45,000 patrons and was promoted by Odessa Promotions, which was formed by a group of television professionals, including John Fowler, from GTV 9 Melbourne. Although conceived and promoted as Australia's Woodstock, the Sunbury Pop Festivals signalled the end of the hippie peace movement of the late 1960s and the beginning of the reign of pub rock. The early festivals were financially successful and featured performances by Australian and New Zealand bands including, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, Max Merritt and the Meteors, Chain and Wild Cherries. Various live albums were recorded at the festivals including Aztecs Live! At Sunbury issued in September 1972, which peaked at No. 3 on the Go-Set Top 20 Albums; and the triple live album, Sunbury 1973 - The Great Australian Rock Festival which was the inaugural release by Mushroom Records. Looking to pull in bigger crowds, the founders booked international acts with British rock band Queen performing in 1974. They arrived late, and were initially booed by a crowd who expected to see home grown acts, but they finished their set despite crowd screams of "go back to Pommyland, ya pooftahs". Lead singer Freddie Mercury retorted with "When we come back to Australia, Queen will be the biggest band in the world!". A fledgling Skyhooks were also booed and returned the following year with a new lead singer, Graeme "Shirley" Strachan. In 1975 another British band, Deep Purple, were head-liners. A fracas developed on-stage between Deep Purple's roadies and AC/DC's roadies and members. Due to poor weather and high ticket prices the attendance was down to 16,000. Odessa Promotions was liquidated after paying out Deep Purple but most local acts were not paid by Odessa. Late in the year, Deep Purple placed money into a fund so that unpaid artists were paid at the full musician's rate. In 2015, the Sunbury Pop Festival was inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame.There is footage on YouTube about the Sunbury Rock festival .

3NRG Incorporated is a community radio station based in Sunbury, Victoria.

The Sunbury Industrial School located on Jackson's Hill in Sunbury, Victoria, Australia, was a school developed to educate and house destitute children from 1864 until 1879. A 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) site was put aside in Sunbury following the implementation of the Neglected and Criminal Children's Act of 1864. Destitute or orphaned children were sent as wards of the state to learn a trade in the belief that this may then provide them with the skills necessary (once they were old enough), to provide and care for themselves. The school was co-educational although girls and boys were segregated. Boys were expected to learn a trade while girls were expected to handle menial tasks such as washing clothes, cleaning floors and to assist with cooking. The school consisted of ten large, unheated, bluestone buildings arranged in two rows of five. Located on the side of Jackson's Hill, they were called the Hill Wards. The open and exposed position of the buildings led to frequent illness and constant poor health of the children. The children were given rancid food, that they ate in their own rooms that by the time they received it, was cold. The children were given only a little water, no bedding, save for a blanket and many affected by Ophthalmia, went untreated, resulting in blindness. It was estimated that around 10 percent of children died within the first year of operation. This fact alone led to the school gaining the nickname of the Sunbury Slaughterhouse. Eventually, after public outcry, and after numerous Royal Commissions into the Industrial School System, by 1879 the Sunbury Industrial School was closed. The site was used as an asylum for the mentally ill from 1894 until around 1912, the patients were referred to as inmates. By 1914 at its peak, the Sunbury Lunatic Asylum housed 1000 patients. The asylum was renamed a psychiatric hospital and then a mental hospital. By the 1920s the Health Reformation Act came in and improved conditions. By 1968 until 1992, the site was called the Caloola Training Centre for the Intellectually Disabled. Presently, the site is used by Victoria University.

Sunbury Lunatic Asylum was a 19th-century mental health facility known as a lunatic asylum, located in Sunbury, Victoria, Australia, first opened in October 1879. Prior to being opened as an asylum, Sunbury was controlled by the Department of Industrial and Reformatory Schools (VA 1466). When Sunbury was acquired by the Hospitals for the Insane Branch (VA 2863) patients were transferred from the Ballarat Asylum (VA 2844) and the Ballarat Asylum was handed over to the Department of Industrial and Reformatory Schools. Patients were also transferred from Yarra Bend Asylum (VA 2839). Its proclamation as an asylum was published in the Government Gazette on 31 October 1879. Since its establishment, the title of the institution at Sunbury has been altered several times to reflect both the community's changing attitude towards mental illness and the Victorian Government's approach to the treatment of mentally disturbed persons. Despite the changes in designation the function and structure of the agency has not altered significantly, therefore the institution has been registered as one continuous agency. From its establishment until 1905 the institution at Sunbury was known as an Asylum. This title emphasised its function as a place of detention rather than a hospital which provided treatment for mentally ill people who could be cured. The Lunacy Act 1903 (No.1873) of changed the title of all "asylums" to "hospitals for the insane". This Act came into operation in March 1905. The Mental Hygiene Act 1933 (No.4157) altered the title to "mental hospitals". An asylum or hospital for the insane was any public building proclaimed by the Governor-in-Council and published in the Government Gazette as a place for the reception of mentally ill persons. An asylum could also provide wards for the temporary reception of patients as well as long term patients. Up until the Mental Health Act 1959 became operative in 1962 these "short-term" wards were known as "receiving houses" or "receiving wards". The Mental Health Act 1959 (No.6605) designated hospitals providing short-term diagnosis and accommodation as "psychiatric hospitals". However throughout its life Sunbury has been used almost exclusively for long-term patients. Patients could not be retained in an Asylum without a warrant requesting their admission. Prior to 1867 the warrant was signed by the Governor. After this date the Chief Secretary (VRG 26) was responsible for this function. From 1934 the Director of Mental Hygiene (VA 2866) and from 1952 the Chief Medical Officer of the Mental Hygiene Branch (VA 2866) were successively responsible for admission of patients. The Lunacy Act 1914 (No.2539) made provision for the admission of patients on a voluntary basis, i.e. on a patient's own request for a specified period of time. In 1962 under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1959 (No.6605) Sunbury was proclaimed in the Government Gazette as a Mental Hospital and a Training Centre as it was responsible for mentally disturbed and mentally retarded patients. In 1985 responsibility for Sunbury was passed from the Mental Health Division (VA 6961) of the Department of Health II (VA 2695) to the Office of Intellectual Disability Services (VA 2909), a division of the Department of Community Services (VA 2633). It was used for a period thereafter as a training centre to accommodate intellectually handicapped persons. Victoria University accepted the Urban Land Authorities' offer in 1992 to take over the Caloola site and operated it as a university campus for several years; it closed the campus in 2011 but is still home to a primary and specialist school, 3NRG radio, and the Boilerhouse Theatre Company. In 2013, a group known as the Sunbury Asylum Alliance was established with the aim to reclaim the site for a community, training and tourism hub.

Holden railway station is a long closed railway station on the Bendigo railway in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It opened on 1 January 1860, and closed on 31 December 1860.

The Shire of Bulla was a local government area about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of 422.17 square kilometres (163.0 sq mi), and existed from 1862 until 1994.

Sunbury ( SUN-bər-ee, locally SUN-bree) is a satellite suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 38 kilometres (24 mi) north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Hume local government area. Sunbury recorded a population of 38,851 at the 2021 census.Statistically, Sunbury is considered part of Greater Melbourne, as per the Victorian Government's 2009 decision to extend the urban growth boundary in 2011 to include the area in the Melbourne Urban Area as the north-western fringe of the Greater Melbourne area, giving its land urban status and value.

Sunbury Downs College is a secondary college located in the north-west regional town of Sunbury, Victoria, Australia. The College is set on a single campus located within the northern Melbourne suburb of Sunbury and caters for students in Years 7–12.

Sunbury railway station is the terminus of the suburban electrified Sunbury line in Victoria, Australia. It serves the north-western Melbourne suburb of Sunbury, and opened on 10 February 1859.The station is also serviced by V/Line services to Bendigo and Echuca. Disused station Rupertswood is located between Sunbury and Clarkefield.

The Electoral district of North Bourke was one of the original sixteen electoral districts of the old unicameral Victorian Legislative Council of 1851 to 1856. Victoria being a colony in Australia at the time. The district's area was defined as: "Bounded on the north by the great dividing range from the source of the River Plenty to the source of the Werribee River on the west by the Werribee River to Port Phillip Bay on the south by Port Phillip Bay to the mouth of the Yarra Yarra River and by that river to the confluence of the River Plenty and on the east by the River Plenty to its head in the great dividing range."From 1856 onwards, the Victorian parliament consisted of two houses, the Victorian Legislative Council (upper house, consisting of Provinces) and the Victorian Legislative Assembly (lower house).