The claim
A roadside hotel in the village of Collector, near Canberra, where Ben Hall's gang struck on Australia Day 1865. While the gang held up Kimberley's Commercial Hotel, Constable Samuel Nelson was shot dead outside, and a memorial marks the spot. The building has traded as a hotel since the early 1860s and still offers a bistro and rooms.
What the records show
The construction years are the New South Wales State Heritage Register's: 1860-1861, for Kimberley's Commercial Hotel, built by a bootmaker who folded his shop into the hotel. Its hotel use is firmly documented by Ben Hall's gang raid on 26 January 1865, when Constable Samuel Nelson was shot dead outside. The register and Wikipedia say it has operated as a hotel ever since. That sentence describes the record up to the register reading of 18 September 2026, which says something else about now: New South Wales publishes its licensed premises monthly, and the list standing at 1 August 2026 carries the licence as current while marking the premises itself as having temporarily ceased trading, a state recorded against it since June 2024. So the house is left as trading here, because a licence is alive and nobody has told us the door is shut for good, but a traveller should ring before driving to Collector.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1860 | Claimed founding | Its listing |
| c.1860 | Present building | Building fabric |
| 1865 | First record of a drinking house here | State Heritage Register, on the hotel at the raid of 1865 |
What to look for inside
- Raided by Ben Hall's gang, 26 January 1865
- Constable Samuel Nelson killed outside
- Part of the heritage-listed 'Ben Hall Sites'
Visiting
Bushranger Hotel is in Collector, Australia, at 24 Church Street (Federal Highway), Collector NSW. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushranger_Hotel
- apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5055032
- www.nsw.gov.au/business-and-economy/liquor-and-gaming/gaming/gaming-machine-data-reports/licensed-premises-data
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.
How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
