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CAPITAL THEATRE, BENDIGO By Fred Page

he story of the Bendigo Capital goes According to the daughter of the architect, Theatre, Vahland was responsible for
Tback to the early 1870s, when prominent Mrs Margaret Thompson, her father’s credo Bendigo's Lyceum Theatre in 1856 on the
local architect and avid freemason, William for his buildings was stability, utility and site formerly occupied by the Bendigo
Charles Vahland, was commissioned to beauty. Amongst his most spectacular works Advertiser in Pall Mall. This theatre boasted
design the largest Masonic complex in in Bendigo are the Town Hall, Alexandra an auditorium for sixteen hundred people, and
Victoria, which at the time of handing over to Fountain, the School of Mines (TAFE a stage eighteen metres deep.
its owners cost thirteen thousand pounds. College), and Fortuna Villa, the home of
'quartz king' George Lansell. In 1859, he also designed the original
In 1873, the building opened as the home of Shamrock Hotel, with its attached Theatre
the Golden and Corinthian Lodge and was Prior to designing the Masonic complex, Royal (sometimes referred to as the Royal
formally dedicated on 21 October 1874. which subsequently included the Capital Exchange Theatre). The present Shamrock

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