Admin

The administration office at the Bathurst Gasworks holds the residue of an industrial workplace at slow rest. A timber desk sits at the centre of the room, with dust settled in a regular layer across its surface. Papers are scattered across the floor, some still in folders, others loose. Light filters through grimy windows along one wall, picking out the corners of the desk and the shape of an office chair pulled back from it. Skirting board paint has peeled away in places. Plant growth has worked its way in through the gaps where the building no longer keeps the weather out: nature is taking the room back at its own pace.

Bathurst Council ran its gasworks operation from this building and ones like it from 1888 until 1979. The works manager submitted half-yearly reports to council from desks of this kind: coal carbonised, gas produced, mains laid, services installed, new equipment fitted. The 1917 half-year report from manager A.G. Ambrose recorded 2,879 tons of coal carbonised, 30,954,900 cubic feet of gas produced, and a new rotary exhauster fitted to replace one that had run continuously for six years. AGL ran the site from 1979 to 1987. After production ended, the paperwork stopped. The papers on this floor are from the years just before.