SUTTON BUILDING HERITAGE OVERLAY PETITION

31 STURT STREET BALLARAT

Your help is needed to preserve one of Ballarat’s iconic buildings.

The Sutton building is in a heritage precinct in Ballarat but the building urgently needs your help to gain a heritage overlay internally to preserve and protect the building from development.

Sutton’s music stores has over 120 years of musical history in Ballarat, The building was built in 1892 by the Sutton family and was Australia’s first purpose built music emporium and is the last building of its type in Australia. Sutton’s music stores were first founded in 1855 in a tent on the Ballarat gold fields and grew to be the largest music store chain in Australia. When this iconic building was first built it was the tallest commercial building in Ballarat and housed the first hydraulic lift in Ballarat which was designed by Henry Sutton who was one of Australia’s greatest inventors. Many of the original features of the building remain such as the stained glass window in the front the building. The store was visited by many notable people such as Dame Nellie Melba, Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain. The Sutton music store history has recently been revived becoming one of Ballarat’s great music venues and honoured the history of the building and the Sutton family. Sutton’s were great supporters of the South Street competitions and the Sutton Shield and Sutton Cup were highly prized awards during competitions.

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