Control Room

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/8.0 · 1.3s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The control room of the purifier shed at the Bathurst Gasworks. The instrument labels on the control panel are in German. The plant was rebuilt around 1960 and ran until 1987.

Edition

Open edition

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A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

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Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Control Room
Series: Bathurst Gasworks
Catalogue: BGA-003
Process: Giclée
Captured: 2 January 2016
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1.3s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 24 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A control panel mounted on a freestanding metal frame stands at the centre of the purifier shed's control room at the Bathurst Gasworks. The meter labels on the panel are in German. The instruments themselves are arrayed in working order across the face: pressure gauges, flow meters, indicator lamps, and rotary switches. A timber bench in front of the panel carries the residue of paperwork, small tools, and the dust of long disuse. The walls behind the panel are pale industrial green, the colour of council facility interiors built across the middle of the twentieth century. The instrument labels are the giveaway as to which part of the plant this room governed.

The purifier shed was the final gas-cleaning stage before town gas entered the distribution mains. Crude gas passed through purifier boxes packed with iron oxide and lime to strip out sulphur compounds and other residual impurities. The German-labelled control panel almost certainly arrived as part of imported European purifier plant, fitted during the c.1960 rebuild of the works rather than the original 1888 council installation. The Bathurst Gasworks ran on coal-gas production until 1979 and on AGL's LPG reforming until 1987. The panel monitored that final stage from the rebuild forward. After 1987 the instruments stopped being read.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A steel control panel stands in a dim room, its surface grey with grime. Toggle switches, dials and push buttons sit in rows across the face. Most instrument covers have been removed or hang open, exposing the mechanical chart recorders behind them. Rust bleeds down the metal casing in long streaks. Cables dangle from the ceiling. Light enters through a doorway to the left, catching dust on the wet concrete floor.

Brett Patman

The series

Bathurst Gasworks

2016 · 22 photographs

Bathurst Gasworks ran on Russell Street from 1888 to 1987, producing town gas for Bathurst, Orange, and Lithgow under a three-council partnership for 91 years before being leased to AGL in 1979. Town gas production ceased in 1987, when Bathurst was switched onto the state natural gas grid. The site shows the standard pattern of a 19th-century country gasworks: a coal-fired retort house, byproduct storage, and a service yard. Coal tar from the gas-making process produced significant ground contamination, and the site has been partly remediated by Bathurst Regional Council with funding from the NSW Environmental Trust in 2008 and 2009. The retort building is the most prominent surviving structure and is documented in the Bathurst Regional Council heritage layer.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.