Mezzanine Back Wall

The back wall of the mezzanine level at ABBCO Bakery in Leichhardt shows what time does to a building left to its own devices. Paint has lifted from the surface in curling sheets, each layer a different colour, the whole sequence exposed now that no one is repainting it. Dust settles on every horizontal surface. Faint light from above picks out the texture but does not illuminate much. The building was empty, and it reads as empty. The ABBCO Bakery at Leichhardt was the Leichhardt facility of Abbco Bread Co Pty Ltd, a company whose origins trace to the NSW State Bakery at Stanmore. The State Bakery was established in 1914 after the NSW Government purchased a large brick bakery at 92-96 Percival Road, Stanmore, with the aim of regulating bread prices and preventing wartime profiteering. Around 1925 the State Bakery passed into private hands and continued operating as the Automatic Bread Baking Company, known as ABBCO. By April 1941 the Leichhardt facility was operating and was prominent enough that Mr Justice Maxwell, presiding over a Federal Royal Commission into ministerial conduct, visited the bakery in person to observe bread baking firsthand. By 1973 the bakery was producing around 100 types of bread across several shapes and sizes, with bread travelling through a 65-foot oven before being conveyed around the ceiling on belt systems for cooling. The Baking Trade Employees' Union of NSW described it that year as the biggest independent bakery in Australia. The building was abandoned by the time Brett Patman photographed it in 2015. Upper levels had become a dumping ground for doors and building materials. The basement flooded in rain. The mezzanine wall recorded it all in paint. The building has since been demolished. A Dan Murphy's liquor store opened on the site around 2016.