LAT LONG
108 Australian Geographic
ST AR NAUD
A small Victorian town about 100km west of
Bendigo is attracting visitors with its unique
museum and an artistic pub landlord.
STORY AND PHOTOGR APHY BY IAN KENINS
LAT LONG: 36° 37ˇ S 143° 15ˇ E
A
T THE PEAK of the decade-long drought that
tested the resilience of rural Australia, things
in the Victorian township of St Arnaud were
visibly bleak. The nearby Wimmera countryside was
drier than usual, while an increasing number of empty
stores blighted the architecturally charming retail
strip. The town needed a miracle of biblical propor-
tions, and, in 2009, it seemingly received one.
Into St Arnaud came two women with more than
1000 Bibles and a host of other artefacts, which were
laid out on display in what became Australia’s first
Bible museum. However, not all locals were convinced
that Ellen Reid and her daughter, Jean, were the mes-
siahs. “Some thought we were the weirdos at the end
of the street,” says Jean. But establishing a tourism
venture signified the town had something to offer.
After looking around Australia for many months
they had settled on St Arnaud. “We wanted a shop in
a country town with at least one major highway [pass-
ing through] and banks, because that meant the town
was viable,” says Ellen. “It also...had to be extremely
cheap because I had no money.”
The building was originally a butcher-turned-
antiques store in desperate need of refurbishment.
“The windows were all boarded up because they were
broken, it had nine live termite nests and was otherwise
pretty dilapidated,” remembers Jean.
While Jean stripped, repaired and painted, Ellen
made 30 trips in a van and trailer laden with books and
furniture from their then home in Ferntree Gully on
the outskirts of Melbourne, 280km away. “We had no
money for removalists,” says Jean. “Mum made the
trips because she could only afford the petrol.”
Ellen bought her first Bible in 1981 during
an English holiday with husband, Jim, and their two
young children, Jean and James. The couple was
Christadelphian, a small denomination that closely
adheres to the Bible. “We found a 1599 Geneva Bible,
which was a translation before the King James Bible,
for £200 in an Oxford bookshop. It was a bargain.”
It was also the start of an obsession for Ellen and
Jim, and later Jean. Six months later they returned to
their home in Perth with seven tea chests filled with
books, including 50 Bibles, and 50 pages from a 1611
first edition print of the King James Bible. “That was
the first mass-produced bible that had numbered
verses and chapters,” says Ellen. “They’re made from
rag paper and today each page is worth about $100. We
hand it around [to visitors] because most people have
not touched something 400 years old.”Decorative elements.
Many grand buildings,
such as the Old Victoria
Inn, right, line Napier
Street, St Arnaud’s main
strip. They are the legacy
of a more prosperous era.Holy overhaul. St Arnaud’s Bible Museum (above) is housed in what was
once a butcher and then an antiques store. Local John Dods (right) was a
regular visitor to the museum before becoming a volunteer.