After it closed a few years ago, the buildings began to fall into disrepair and suffer at the hands of vandals and squatters. Now another Creswick family with a long lineage in the town has bought the Albert Street premises with plans to restore and rejuvenate the historic site, under the name Pasco and Co.

Brad Blake and Katrina Wrigley are standing in the 'newer' hardware store when The Courier arrives: 'newer' in the sense the building dates from the 1950s, and the one next door is 100 years older.

"We've been working with the family for two or three years, and they liked the proposal of restoring the existing buildings," Brad Blake says.

There had been plans to bulldoze the site previously and build a supermarket which thankfully fell through, Mr Blake says, and the shop had been left empty since.

"Up until two or three years ago, when we first looked at the site, it was in really condition," he says.

"It's been vandalised since then; all the old glass and some leadlight windows were smashed out of it. All the old paperwork was scattered right throughout the place."

"While it does look a mess now, compared to what it was four weeks ago it's pretty tidy," Katrina Wrigley says.

The pair are the first new owners since the original settlement on the land in the early 1850s, and their excitement at what's possible for the one-acre site is tangible.

"It was in the Pasco name at the very start and has simply been passed on from one generation to the next," Ms Wrigley says.

"And at the end they just didn't want to run the business anymore."

Brad Blake says his family have been around in Creswick for roughly the same time period, having arrived during the boom of the goldmines in the mid-1800s; and like all country towns, families ended up becoming related, even distantly.

"So the Blakes knew the Pascos, and the Wrigleys were here too - they had been farmers here for generations - everyone knew each other. So when we went to Tony Pascoe (the last owner) with our vision, he was happy to pass it on to us."

That vision is 'to rejuvenate the Pasco's legacy, including restoring all existing buildings and gardens on the site, uncovering as much history as we can find, and providing a space where new businesses can make their mark on Creswick just as the Pascos have done,' according to the Pasco and Co website.

Walking around the former hardware yards and storage is a journey into the past. This is no Bunnings or Mitre 10. The timber stacks were accessed by ladder, under a tin roof outside. Standing next to them, a person could imagine the snorting of horses waiting to haul their dray loaded with timber and goods to a distant job, their harness jiggling with chains and the steel-rimmed wagon wheels crunching the crushed quartz.

Inside, a storekeeper in an apron would measure out nails or screws or washers into a box or paper bag after weighing them in pounds and ounces. A customer would ask for what they wanted rather than seeking it out; only the items more likely to provoke an impulse purchase would be on show - perhaps the latest broadaxe or advertising for a new fumigator cart to kill rabbits; or mining supplies - belts for pulleys of all sizes were hung from the ceiling.

The hardware shop, also known as the ironmongers, sold almost everything needed for city and rural life that wasn't a softgood, from rifles, shotgun and ammunition to pots and pans, axes and garden tools. A good merchant went to lengths to source quality tools and supplies: if it wasn't made in Australia then the greatest part of the merchandise was imported from Great Britain. Expensive American tools also made the journey to Creswick; names like Disston and Stanley and Bonney.

Accounts were kept in ledger books, which have survived to this day. Huge, fat leather-bound journals overstuffed with pages and pages of spidery cursive writing - who owed what, incoming orders, lists of outstanding deliveries. The job of bookkeeping was crucial to the survival of a business which relied heavily on credit being given to customers, sometimes for months at a time.

And there was the (endless) funeral business.

Pasco's went into the undertaking trade during its time, and even employed a local carpenter to construct and provide coffins. The remains (no pun intended) of the cool room storage and casket rackets still exist at the rear of one of the buildings on the property.

Brad and Katrina's vision is to restore and discover more about Pasco's before they eventually reopen as a business hub, promoting local bespoke makers and creators from around the district - a trend that is seeing disused building and sites reopening across Australia, repurposed and restored.

"We want to take the whole site into a new era of trading for the main street," Brad Blake says.

"There's potential here for maybe 10 or 12 different leases, aimed at start-up businesses."