Level Two

Level two of the Bathurst Gasworks shows the multi-floor working layout of a mid-century coal-gas plant, the view here facing north-east across the retort building. Rusting steel structures rise through the floor and reach toward the ceiling, with flaking paint hanging in strips from the older surfaces. Silent machinery occupies several stations across the space: the visible parts include drive housings, transfer chutes, and pipework runs that descended to the levels below. Concrete underfoot is grey and dust-covered, with debris scattered where weather has worked through the roof above. Sunlight enters through openings in the cladding and falls in hard bands across the equipment.

Gasworks of this scale were built across multiple levels so the chemistry could happen by gravity where possible. Coal was hauled up to feed hoppers above the retorts, gas rose through condensers and purifiers, and tar and other heavy by-products dropped to the lower levels for collection. The Bathurst Gasworks operated as a council facility from 1888 until 1979, with this c.1960 plant layout the surviving evidence of the second half of that run. AGL took over operations from 1979 and reformed LPG into town gas here until 1987. Both eras used these levels. The last shift was thirty-eight years before this photograph.