Location
Ceres is a small township in the Barrabool Hills, 8km west-south-west of Geelong's centre. It runs from the Barwon River and lagoons in the north, south to Waurn Ponds. Ceres lookout, 3 km east of the township, and Merrawarp Road, define its outer perimeter.

Description
Ceres is a rural town between the Princes and Hamilton highways and within commuting distance of Geelong. Its lookout offers sweeping views across Geelong.

Ceres has an Aboriginal quarry for Cambrian greenstone as well as the Barrabool sandstone quarry.

The sandstone has bequeathed a number of fine old buildings. "Neuchatel" (formerly a Swiss vineyard) is one of many homesteads, barns, churches and halls on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The Barrabool Hills Maze and Gardens is at the western edge of the district.

History
Several vineyards were established in this region in the 1840s.

A landowner subdivided lots in a town of his own design in 1850 and advertised the village of "Ceres" (from the Roman goddess of agriculture and cereals or grains). The opening of the Wheat Sheaf Hotel (1850) and the Rising Sun Hotel (1853) at Ceres became the genesis of a town centre.

The owners of a nearby quarry, which became a source of fine building material, Barrabool sandstone, established a blacksmith's forge. Hand-reaping of grain crops, orchard and grape picking were labour-intensive and maintained a relatively high local population.

The decline of those agricultural activities during the 1870s caused a corresponding decline in Ceres. Some orchards continued, but grazing interests took over much of the land.