Couch in Grass

An armchair, patterned fabric still intact, sits in the long grass of the overgrown lot outside the former Davies Coop / Bradmill factory on Francis Street, Yarraville. A discarded panel lies nearby. The metal-clad manufacturing sheds rise behind the grass, and beyond them the boiler house chimney stands against a flat, overcast sky, power transmission towers visible further back. The lot has the look of a place that was cleared quickly and then simply left. The factory was developed by Davies Coop & Co. Ltd from 1952, when the company entered an agreement with the Bradford Dyers' Association Ltd of England, taking exclusive Australian rights to the "Rigmel" shrink-control process and forming a subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., to run dyeing and finishing on property already acquired at West Footscray. A 1954 newspaper report records that 40 acres had been purchased at West Footscray and that the new dye house, begun in 1952, was expected to be finished by November of that year. The manufacturing buildings on the site reflect a transitional phase in factory design: large south-lit sawtooth roofs carried on trussed frames, a form noted in the Maribyrnong Heritage Overlay HO125 as architecturally significant. The site later operated under the Bradmill name as a major denim and workwear fabric manufacturer. Textile operations ceased about 2001 as tariff protection wound back and cheaper imports made the business unviable. The boiler house chimney visible in this photograph is the structure the heritage listing singles out as the large and dominant local landmark, the piece of fabric carried through into the subsequent redevelopment by Frasers Property Australia and Irongate. This photograph was made in 2011, during the years between the factory's closure and its redevelopment, when the site sat empty and the grass grew up around whatever had been left behind.