Remnants Of Walhalla

— an insight into one of the few original buildings that still stands in Walhalla since the gold rush era of the late 19th Centuary.

Background

Walhalla is an old mining town in Gippsland, Victoria, which experiences the gold rush at the end of the 19th Centuary – a time when it hosted more than 4,000 residents. Today the population sits at only twenty. Tourism has become the only tool which keeps the town alive, and as a result Walhalla is losing its identity. The old post office and adjoining house is one of the few original buildings still standing.

The Post Mistress of Walhalla for much of the 20th century was a lady named Doreen Hannan, who took on the roll in 1928, and moved into the premises in 1948 when she purchased the building from the Commonwealth Government. She lived there until her death in 1988. At the time of documenting this building, nothing has been touched in the house since. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls revealing a century's worth of canvas and newspaper layers that were used to help line the bare wooden walls. There may not be any original members of the community left in this village but I feel that these walls tell Walhalla's story.

Update: Since I took these images in 2010, the Post Office has been restored and the wallpaper fixed. It is now a museum that is open to the public.