2. Duke of Cornwall Hotel -1888

The Duke of Cornwall was one of Broken Hill’s earliest hotels, built only five years after the mining settlement was founded in 1883. The original 1886 wooden hotel on the same site was destroyed by fire within a year. It was rebuilt in 1888 for Barnett Harris, withstanding the great fire that swept along Argent Street the same year, destroying many timber buildings. 

The Duke of Cornwall as an elegant, two storey stone structure with contrasting brick. With its decorative balconies and gables and other Classical influences, it is considered to be architecturally significant. 

The Duke of Cornwall stands on the corner of Argent and Kaolin Streets and marks the end of the commercial precinct. It is the first Hotel on the Silver trail, but one of many: when it was rebuilt on 1888, Broken Hill already had fifty-five hotels. 

One of the Duke of Cornwall’s most famous publicans was Edward Aldridge, who occupied the Hotel between 1889 and 1909. Aldridge was an amateur mineralogist who famously acquired a collection of thousands of minerals in exchange for beer. He kept a small zoo and a museum in the hotel.  

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