10. Dunstan Hotel 1903

The hotel is built on a site which was occupied by one of Clyde’s earliest tent hotels, the Hotel United States. It was built by the Buckingham family who shortly after moved to Arrowtown when gold was found there in 1862. In 1868 Mr Cox built a handsome wooden hotel on the site and named it the Port Phillip. It was destroyed by fire in 1903 but was rebuilt in stone and renamed the Commercial Hotel. A few days later a fire gutted the interior but because the town was booming and the stone structure was undamaged, it was rebuilt. Over the years the hotel changed hands many times but its exterior remained the same. In the 1960s, an impressive stone building next door, Bell’s Biscuit Factory, was demolished and replaced by a concrete block building as a new bar. In 1987 when the main street was used as a set for the film Illustrious Energy the stone and mud brick facades were added, using materials from the old part of Cromwell that was to be flooded by Lake Dunstan.

11. Benjamin Naylor’s Store (Olivers) 1870

This large complex has survived almost intact. In 1862 Benjamin Naylor arrived in Upper Dunstan bringing a wagon load of supplies and on this site, erected a tent as a store for the thousands of miners flooding into Clyde.

He was born at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, in 1830 and trained as a blacksmith. In 1851 he sailed to the Victorian gold fields in Australia. He was lured to Otago when Gabriel Read discovered the huge gold field in Lawrence in 1861 where he set up a store before shifting to the Dunstan gold fields.

In 1863 the tent store was replaced by a wood and corrugated iron building, the Victoria Store, with accommodation attached. The existing stone building dates from 1870. Eventually Naylor purchased the land from the store to the corner (Naylor Street) and built stables, coach sheds, a smoke house, a large store for timber and iron and a gracious home. The home, complete with conservatory, servants quarters and a large underground coal and food storage cellar is still in its original condition – apart from the front of the house which was altered in 1929. The walls surrounding the property were built from stones salvaged from derelict buildings.

Naylor served four years as Mayor of the Clyde Borough and often entertained the then New Zealand Prime Minister, Richard Seddon (King Dick).

In 1925 the property was sold to Joseph and Sarah Davidson who partitioned the store with half remaining as a general store and the other as a drapery. The property remained in the Davidson family until the mid- 1960s. In 1977 it was bought by Fleur Sullivan and re-opened as Olivers Restaurant and Lodge. During the restoration many old treasures were found, including the day books dating back to 1864.