23/10/2025
🍻💔 Ode to the Minapre Hotel, Lascelles
Some places leave a mark on the map.
Others leave a mark on people.
We stopped in Lascelles on our Osteo Outreach Harvest Tour in October 2022, one of several times we’ve passed through this proud Mallee town. We set up our tables for the day, one right inside the bar, with the smell of beers, timber, and old stories in the air.
Photographer Phil Down captured it all, a rare glimpse behind the scenes of our Central Mallee Health team doing what we love across 40,000 sq kilometres of the Mallee. A collection that now feels even more special.
Today, that pub, that beautiful big old heart of the town, is gone. The Lascelles Minapre Hotel, standing tall since the early 1900s and rebuilt after its first fire in 1926, has once again been lost to flames.
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A Place of Belonging
In towns like Lascelles, pubs are more than buildings.
They are altars of gathering, where stories are traded, friendships are formed, and the weight of the week and the weather is eased over laughter, music, a cold beer, and shared meals.
These walls have held weddings and wakes, locals and travellers, sporting clubs and social functions, New Years and nights before Christmas, long days and longer yarns. The Minapre was part of the lifeblood of the Mallee and the Silo Art Trail, a proud symbol of community in the heart of farming country.
When there is a pub in town, you can be certain there is always a place to go, even when you feel alone.
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To the People of Lascelles, Past and Present
We see and feel for you.
We know what this loss means.
For every person who shared a drink, a story, or a song within those walls, your memories remain.
We remember people also.
May you find comfort in knowing that what stood there was more than brick and timber. It was a reflection of community, resilience, and connection that made its mark on you, and that you are a part of creating.
We are thinking of everyone feeling the grief and loss, and also of the joy, the pride, and the countless moments that made this place your home.
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📍 Lascelles, Victoria
A tribute from the CMH team, who were lucky enough to share a small piece of its story.
