Industrial Ductwork

The photograph shows the exterior of a red brick manufacturing building at the former Davies Coop / Bradmill textile complex on Francis Street, Yarraville. Large metal ducting curves down from the roofline and connects to a tall cylindrical stack, with a pale green plant structure visible beyond. White conduit and pipework run along the brick wall past a row of tall industrial windows. At ground level, a red stop sign stands among stacked concrete, loose timber, and patches of grass, the kind of accumulation that gathers around a building that has stopped being used but has not yet been cleared. The site's history begins with Davies Coop and Co. Ltd, which formed a subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., in 1952 to run dyeing and finishing operations at West Footscray under an agreement with the Bradford Dyers' Association Ltd of England. The arrangement gave Davies Coop exclusive Australian rights to the Bradford Dyers' "Rigmel" shrink-control process. A 1954 report in The Herald noted that the West Footscray dye house, started in 1952, was expected to be completed by November of that year, with the company having purchased 40 acres at the site. The manufacturing buildings date from the early 1950s and are noted in the Maribyrnong Heritage Overlay for their transitional design: south-lit sawtooth roofs carried on trussed frames. The site later operated under the Bradmill name as a major denim and workwear fabric manufacturer. Operations ceased around 2001 following the wind-back of tariff protection, and the site was vacated around 2007. The 2011 photograph records a building that had been standing empty for several years. The ductwork, stack, and pipework visible here were part of a large and complex industrial plant that has since been substantially cleared. The boiler house, proofing building, and canteen are retained under Maribyrnong Heritage Overlay HO125, but much of what surrounded them, including the external plant recorded in this frame, is gone. The photograph is part of Brett Patman's Bradmill Denim series, shot during the dormant years between closure and redevelopment.