Horsham

Horsham is a city in western Victoria, Australia, on the Wimmera River in the wheat country of the Wimmera region. James Monckton Darlot, an early settler, named it after his home town of Horsham in Sussex, England.

Darlot took up land on the river in 1842, and a village grew around a store and a post office at the crossing. The railway from Melbourne arrived in the late 1870s, and Horsham became the market town for the wheat farms opened on the plains by selectors in those years. It was proclaimed a city in 1949, and the town hall, with its Art Deco front, was finished in the late 1930s with a theater inside. Its broad main streets keep banks, hotels and shops from the wheat boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Wheat, barley, lentils and chickpeas from the farms of the Wimmera are stored in silos around the city and shipped to ports for export. The Grains Innovation Park, run by Agriculture Victoria, breeds new varieties of wheat, pulses and oilseeds for dry farming.

The Horsham Regional Art Gallery holds a collection of Australian photography and paintings of the Wimmera landscape, with exhibitions that change through the year. The Botanic Gardens, laid out by William Guilfoyle in the late 19th century, run along the bank of the river. To the south, the Grampians National Park, called Gariwerd, has sandstone ranges, waterfalls and rock art of the Djab Wurrung and Jardwadjali peoples. Mount Arapiles, a rock outcrop to the west, is known among climbers for its many routes.