Court House and Victoria Street

Kerang Court House - Kerang visitor guide showing a virtual tour of 'Kerang Court House' linked to an interactive map with local and travel information. 360° panoramas from Victoria.

Kerang - a medium sized rural service centre on the Loddon River of some 4,400 people near the northern tip of Victoria, 25km from the state border. Kerang is the commercial center to an irrigation district given over to dairying, horticulture, lucerne and grain and it is located 279 km north-west of Melbourne on the Loddon Valley Highway, at an elevation of 78 metres.

The area around Kerang is dotted with over 50 lagoons and lakes and has the most populous ibis rookeries in the world with an estimated 200,000 ibis using the area for breeding purposes each year. The area is also home to thousands of other waterbirds and are popular recreational destinations.

Prior to white settlement the Wemba-Wemba Aborigines are thought to have been the area's occupants. The first Europeans in the area were the party of Thomas Mitchell in 1836. Squatters began to take up the local land in 1845.

In 1848 Richard Beyes opened a public house adjacent a river crossing used by drovers about 3 km south of the future townsite. A store opened there in 1849, followed by a saddlery and a church. In 1857 Woodfull Patchell attempted to purchase land at this settlement. After a dispute over the price he decided to move upriver where he built a bridge, thus drawing traffic away from the downstream site. He built a store, a house and, in 1861 or 1862, an hotel. These buildings became the nucleus of a small village which was proclaimed as Kerang in 1861. The name derives from an Aboriginal word of uncertain meaning.

Patchell was also the first farmer in the state to use irrigation in his farming practices. He experimented with oats, barley, maize, millet, tobacco, beet, cotton and sugarcane.

When Kerang was declared a shire in 1871 the settlement's population consisted of 109 people, largely clustered around the Patchell store. However, it grew considerably in the 1870s and 1880s, particularly when business was facilitated by the arrival of the railway from Bendigo in 1884 and the construction of a tramway to Koondrook in 1888. Consequently, the population had increased to over 1000 by 1891.

The fine memorial clock at the corner of Wellington and Victoria streets was established in honour of schoolteacher Karlie McDonald who died in 1927 while trying to save one of her students from drowning in the Loddon River.

The map shows the locations where panoramic pictures were taken of some of Kerang sights. The map, photographs, and information form a guide to some of the attractions of Kerang.