Physical description

Bendigo's Grandest Buildings are the Public Offices (1883-7) and the Law Courts (1892-6). Like the Town Hall they were described as Italian Renaissance in Design, but have high mansard roofs which give them a distinctly French air. They are so pompously Bendigonian that they stand well with Vahland's work, but in fact they originated in the Public Works Department, the architect for both being W.G. Watson. The building containing the Public Offices and Post Office has a frontage of 155 feet to Pall Mall and 100 feet to Williamson Street, and it was designed to include the post and telegraph offices and the postmaster's quarters. Public access was from the porch facing Pall Mall, and on the first floor were the police, water supply and crown lands departments, reached by a stair from the porch on the short façade. It was the largest building of its type outside of Melbourne, and was built in the grandest fashion of ornately stuccoed brick on a foundation of Harcourt granite, faced above ground level with bluestone. The floors of the porches and landings of the main stair are of encaustic tiles, the interior woodwork is of French polished cedar, and the major public rooms have coffered and enriched ceilings and cornices, and ornamentally panelled walls divided by pilasters. The building is surmounted by a tower rising to 130 feet, containing a great clock made by Thomas Gaunt of Melbourne, the chimes played on five bells weighing a total of three tons.