Stairs Down

The stairs in this photograph descend into the lower levels of the Former Standard Brickworks at 14 Federation Street, Box Hill, Victoria. Dust and debris coat each step in an even layer, unbroken since the site closed permanently in August 1988. The concrete is plain and industrial, built for function rather than appearance. Light enters from above; the lower landing sits in shadow. Nothing has been moved. Nothing has been cleaned. The brickworks has one of the longer and more interrupted histories of any industrial site in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The original Haughton Park Brick Company Ltd was established in 1884 on 30 acres at the corner of Elgar and Canterbury Roads, proposing to produce machine and hand-made bricks, tiles, earthenware and porcelain. The company renamed itself Box Hill Brick Co Ltd in 1886, declared its first dividend in 1890, and suspended production in 1892 as the colony-wide depression ended Melbourne's land boom. Brick production resumed on the site around 1911. The company was formally incorporated as Standard Brick and Tile Co. Ltd in 1913, the same year an 18-chamber Hoffman patent kiln was constructed on the site. The Co-operative Brick Company took over the works in 1938. The site closed during the Second World War in 1942 and reopened in 1946. The plant was converted from steam to electricity in 1952. Brick and Pipe Industries acquired the Co-operative Brick Company in 1966 and held the Box Hill works until final closure in August 1988. The site was registered on the Victorian Heritage Register as VHR H0720 the following year, gazetted 20 September 1989. Heritage assessors described it as a rare and unusually intact brickmaking plant of the early twentieth century, retaining material evidence of every stage of production from clay extraction to dispatch. These stairs, leading down through the quiet interior of that plant, were captured in 2011.