Steam Operations at Sovereign Hill
For more detailed information about Sovereign Hill’s Steam Operations Click Here |
Sovereign Hill’s Horses
Sovereign Hill’s horses are working horses. You can see them in teams of two, four or more pulling a variety of vehicles - coaches, carriages, lorries, wagons and drags. For more information on Sovereign Hill’s horses click here or you can download a horse safety sheet . |
Sovereign Hill’s Steam Operations is a carefully researched reconstruction of a late nineteenth century quartz mine’s surface operations. It was put together during Sovereign Hill’s first decade with great care and commitment by many people - museum and technical professionals and steam enthusiasts with backgrounds in machinery trades - using original pieces gathered from many parts of Australia.
Horses are a special part of the experience of visiting Sovereign Hill. Horses were a rich part of the sounds and smells of Ballarat’s diggings and Main Road during the fantastic days of the gold rushes of the 1850s. In those days, horses were the main way of powering vehicles, transporting people and goods and for driving farming and mining machinery (such as the puddler and the whim in Sovereign Hill’s diggings).