Meredith: Live music venue The Royal Hotel looking for new owner to sings its praises

The Royal Hotel at 20 Wallace St, Meredith, is for sale. Famous acts including Ros Wilson, Kate Ceberano, Daryl Braithwaite and Richard Clapton have played there.

The Royal Hotel in Meredith where Australian music legends Daryl Braithwaite, Ross Wilson, Mental as Anything, Kate Ceberano and The Black Sorrows have performed is ready to rock with a new owner.

Owners Damian and Claire Kelly have put the pub, including an on-site four-bedroom house, on the market with a $1.275m-$1.35m asking range.

The couple will celebrate a decade at The Royal in December.

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They have made venue a popular live music destination where Thirsty Merc, Richard Clapton, Boom Crash Opera, Shannon Noll, The Chantoozies, Reece Mastin and Adam Brand have also appeared.

Mr Kelly and his wife were both working at Target’s head office when they decided his constant overseas travel took too much time away from their daughter, now aged 13.

The Royal Hotel in Meredith is popular with locals, travellers and musicians. Geelong footballers also often pop in.

Damian Kelly and local historian Marg Cooper outside the hotel, one of the oldest in Victoria.

The pub’s former stables where singers and acts now perform, following un update by the Kellys.

He started working in landscaping and fencing but was invited to attend a Ballarat store for an interview.

“On the way back I saw the ‘for sale’ sign on the hotel,” Mr Kelly said.

He looked at the real estate listing and called Claire, who liked the sound of operating a pub.

“It was completely put of the blue, there was never any grand plan to run a hotel,” Mr Kelly added.

The stables were upgraded to purposely look similar to the famous Ettamogah Pub.

The commercial kitchen.

Fancy a game of pool?

Located at 20 Wallace St near the Midland Highway between Ballarat and Geelong, the existing hotel is about 100 years old, but the pub was originally built as a three-storey structure during the 1850s-60s Victorian gold rush.

“Cobb & Co coaches would stop there and their horses would be put in the stables,” Mr Kelly said.

“It was the second-highest timber building in Australia at the time, behind the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.”

Enjoy a pub meal or catch-up with mates.

Pop icons Dale Ryder from Boom Crash Opera, David Sterry from Real Life, Brian Mannix from Uncanny X-Men and Scott Carne from Kids in the Kitchen have all performed at The Royal Hotel, including in the Absolutely 80s band.

A four-bedroom house is located on-site near the hotel.

When the pub burned down in 1914, an employee named Zeo Lee – whom newspapers at the time named as Kate Leahy – died during the blaze.

“My wife is convinced the place is haunted, she hears ghosts moving around and everything,” Mr Kelly said.

“April marks the anniversary of her (Zeo’s) death, she usually makes a bit more noise then.”

The hotel’s cool room was used as a morgue during the gold rush.

Inside the house.

One of three bathrooms in the house.

And one of four bedrooms.

The pub’s stables survived the fire and are now where many musical acts play.

Mr Kelly said he and Claire had updated the stables to “look like the front is falling down and with all weird angles, like the Ettamogah Pub” – a famous cartoon pub based on a real NSW venue.

Set on 2043sq m, The Royal includes a large beer garden with covered music stage and outdoor bar service space, an outdoor deck, bar area with adjoining pool table room and TAB, dining room and commercial kitchen.

Mr Kelly said they were selling to be closer to their daughter’s school but would likely move back to Meredith in the future.

The hotel can host between 450-500 people outdoors.

The hotel is set on 2043sq m.

The Royal will still host its traditional Christmas gig, starring the Absolutely 80s band, this year.

One of Mr Kelly’s memories of the pub is the time Boom Crash Opera’s Dale Ryder, a good friend, got up in the night with leg cramps and fell down stairs, breaking his neck.

An Air Ambulance paramedic attending the scene recognised Ryder and asked: “What the hell are you doing in Meredith?”

While Ryder is now in good health and is rehearsing with his band again, Mr Kelly said it was the “harrowing months and years” while the vocalist recovered.

Thirsty Merc, including frontman Rai Thistlethwayte, have performed at the hotel. Picture: Heidi Petith.

Someone barracks for Collingwood, it appears.

Buxton Geelong North director Ben Riddle said he had received inquiries about the “classic country pub” from Melbourne buyers and Geelong publicans.

“You also get the dreamer element where people want to change lifestyles, live on-site and run their own business,” Mr Riddle said.

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