Built to serve

Ballarat’s award-winning Turret Cafe blends history, service and great local food.

Story Terri Cowley  Photos Neil Newitt

Visitors to Ballarat’s Turret Cafe may be so distracted by the delicious food and welcoming service that they may not immediately notice the remarkable building in which they’re dining. Historic buildings are not exactly unusual in the goldrush Victorian city, but this one is something special. “There were two architects,” cafe owner LeRoy Hand says. “They had an argument and apparently never worked together again.”

The architects were Gilbert and Clegg, and they designed and built the place in 1894 and 1895 as medical consulting rooms. The Victoria Heritage Database describes the building at 802 Sturt Street as “a two-storey red brick and cement render building on a bluestone plinth, with castellated bays and lancet windows to the ground floor, and a projecting oriel turret”. It further elaborates: “It is a unique example of this architectural style in Ballarat being a combination of the English Queen Anne domestic revival with an eclectic but well-resolved array of Gothic and Tudor elements … It has lancet windows and a steep conical roof terminated by a sunflower finial.”