From the Beginning to the Present
The Original Concept
Chewton has a history and a community well versed in social and mental
health awareness (e.g. Trewartha's Ampitheatre/wrestling ground of
1855, a place for sport and relaxation built for diggers opposite the
Golden Hope Hotel). From this legacy of social awareness came the
concept of a community based interactment that reflected the historical
past and uniqueness of the environment.
Chewton's historical cultural heritage is based on triangular shapes.
This is a constant reminder of the early chaotic days of gold rush
Chewton. The triangle is symbolic of the myriad of tents, windlasses,
mining cottages, flying buttresses, cooking tripods and poppet heads
that covered the landscape. Even the Chinese who came to the gold
fields brought with them the triangular game of tangrams, still used by
school children today.
The triangle is also the base shape for polygons, polyhedra. prisms and
pyramids which reflects the crystalline structure of the gold bearing
quartz and the elements that make up the various clays. Even rare gold
crystals are made up of these various geometric shapes.
In 2000 a decision was made to create a separate and distinct
GoldenHope entity to focus on the wellbeing of school children, via
the PolygonPat interactment.
In 2007 The Goldenhope Foundation was established and granted
charitable status as a health promotion charity by the
Australian Government.
The Goldenhope Foundation is overseen by a board of trustees ably
helped by dedicated volunteers.
The GoldenHope program began life in the historic gold town of Chewton
in 2000 on the Central Victorian Gold fields, Australia and spread to
become a global community interactment. Chewton has a history of
people working together dating back to the gold fields in the 1850's. The
discovery of gold along Forest Creek saw one of the world's largest
migrations to a particular location with people coming from all parts of
the globe. Tens of thousands of people occupied, or streamed through
this valley that had become the richest shallow alluvial gold field in the
world. Many buildings met the needs of this large population. Amongst
them was Trewartha's Golden Hope Hotel on the corner of Fryers Road
and Mt. Alexander Road, where in 1855 (as reported in the Mount Alexander Mail
of June 15) an employee suffering from depression, as a result of a family
separation, died from the effects of opium.
The hotel is gone but the Trewartha legacy still lives on at Trewartha
Terrace and the Jubilee Primitive Methodist Church of Gothic design.
Both buildings were built (opposite the Golden Hope Hotel) on land
originally owned by Captain James and Mrs. Ellen Trewartha.
The original Golden Hope
Hotel
Developmental headquarters