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Thursday, 22nd May 2008 (5671 views)

A tunnel used to transport gold recovered during Australia's Victorian gold rush has been opened to the public as part of the country's History Week, reports say.

The State Treasury building in Adelaide is now a hotel but in the 1800s it served as the home to South Australia's fiscal reserve and ruling cabinet, the City Messenger states.

Underground tunnels that were used to transport gold link the "striking" building to the city's general post office, the site says, but many of them had been sealed off for a number of years.

But members of the public will now have the chance to take a guided tour of the building and its subterranean network.

National Trust volunteer Mary Hogan told the newspaper: "A lot of gold from the Victorian gold rush in the early 1850s was brought to this building and melted into coins."

Ms Hogan, who was awarded the Order of Australia for her work as a volunteer, added that "a lot of laws" were also passed in the building by the state cabinet, including Australia's first state law granting women the vote, which was passed in 1894.

 

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