Beehive Building, Bendigo, Mining exchange building in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
The Beehive Building on Pall Mall is a Second Empire structure whose facade and front portion rise three storeys while most of the rest extends to two. A central pitched glass roof and ornamental ironwork survive above a long central well, now filled to form Allan's Walk between Pall Mall and Hargreaves Mall.
The structure was completed in 1872 by architect Charles Webb, rising from the site of a building destroyed by fire a year earlier. Its construction coincided with Bendigo's peak gold mining years, when the city was expanding and accumulating wealth rapidly.
The building's name comes from the original Beehive store of the 1850s, and for a time it was known as the Sandhurst Mining Exchange, after Bendigo's former name. In the 1880s, a busy day could bring 2,000 stocktraders and up to 5,000 shareholders into the building. Today Allan's Walk, created by Allan's Music, which bought the building in 1927, cuts through the former central well.
The building is easily accessible on foot and serves as a connecting point between surrounding shopping areas. Visitors should take time to explore the different levels and passages, which remain active routes through the city center.
The building is the nation's oldest known purpose-built mining exchange and one of only two regional exchanges in Australia. In the 1880s a busy day could bring 2,000 stocktraders and up to 5,000 shareholders into the building. The original traders' offices survive in good condition but are not open to the public.
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