A collapsed sheet-metal roof section hanging across the rear wall of a derelict manufacturing hall at the former Davies Coop / Bradmill factory in Yarraville, with a large rusted cylindrical pipe and scattered debris on the concrete floor.

Abandoned Factory Floor

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/14.0 · 0.8 sec · ISO 400
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A wide industrial hall with steel columns. A section of sheet-metal roofing has fallen and hangs across the rear wall. A large cylindrical pipe, heavily rusted, lies among scattered debris on the floor. To the right, a row of round-ducted units lines the wall.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

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

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

See certificate sample →

Shipping Free shipping over $250. Ships worldwide, rates calculated at checkout.

Returns Damaged in transit? We replace it. Full policy →

Ships within 10 business days · signed & numbered

In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Abandoned Factory Floor
Series: Bradmill Denim
Catalogue: BDE-032
Process: Giclée
Captured: 6 November 2011
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/14.0
Shutter: 0.8 sec s
ISO: 400
Focal length: 24 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Yarraville, VIC, Australia
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Yarraville, VIC, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The frame shows one of the manufacturing halls at the former Davies Coop / Bradmill textile complex in Yarraville. Steel columns run at regular intervals across the floor. A section of sheet-metal roofing has given way, pulling loose from the rear wall and hanging at an angle above the concrete below. A large cylindrical pipe, surface eaten through with rust, lies where it fell among scattered debris. To the right, a row of round-ducted units sits intact against the wall, the last evidence of the ventilation infrastructure that once served an active production floor. The site was developed by Davies Coop & Co. Ltd from 1952, when the company entered an agreement with the Bradford Dyers' Association Ltd of England. That agreement gave Davies Coop exclusive Australian rights to the Bradford Dyers' Association's "Rigmel" shrink-control process, and the company formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., to run the new dyeing and finishing operation at West Footscray. A 1954 shareholders' report recorded the dye house as begun in 1952 and expected to be finished by late that year, with 40 acres purchased at West Footscray for the development. The manufacturing buildings on the site reflect a particular moment in industrial design: large south-lit sawtooth roofs carried on trussed structures, a form sitting between the close column spacing of earlier factories and the clear-span roofs that came later. The complex later operated under the Bradmill name and became a significant Australian denim and workwear fabric manufacturer, before textile operations ceased around 2001 following the wind-back of tariff protection. The site was finally vacated around 2007. This photograph was made in 2011, during the years the buildings stood empty before redevelopment. The Bradmill Denim series documents that interval, recording the fabric of a factory whose manufacturing history stretched back to the early post-war decades and whose closure marked the end of a particular kind of Australian textile production.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The factory floor of the former Davies Coop / Bradmill textile complex on Francis Street, Yarraville, photographed in 2011 during the site's dormant years. The manufacturing buildings date from the early 1950s, when Davies Coop & Co. Ltd developed the West Footscray site as a large-scale dyeing and finishing plant, built around a British shrink-control process licensed from the Bradford Dyers' Association. By the time this photograph was made, a sheet-metal roof section had collapsed against the rear wall, and a rusted cylindrical pipe lay across the debris-strewn floor among the surviving ducted plant.

Brett Patman

The series

Bradmill Denim

52 photographs

The former Davies Coop / Bradmill factory, Yarraville, was a textile works on Francis Street in Melbourne's western suburbs, built as the dyeing and finishing plant of the cotton spinner Davies Coop & Co. Ltd. It followed a 1952 agreement with the Bradford Dyers' Association of England and was in production by the middle of 1955. Bradmill Industries bid for Davies Coop in 1969 and owned it outright by 1973. The steel-framed, red brick boiler house is the building the heritage listing names as a large and dominant local landmark.

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.