Industrial Interior

The photograph looks into the body of the former Davies Coop / Bradmill textile complex on Francis Street, Yarraville. Concrete pillars run along one side of a multi-level manufacturing floor, large windows between them drawing light across the space. Steel beams, ducting and pipe runs cross the upper level in the kind of layered infrastructure that accumulates over decades of industrial operation. Fluorescent tube fittings remain angled out from the columns, still aimed at a floor that has long since gone quiet. A metal beam sits out of focus in the foreground, the depth of the space opening up behind it. The Francis Street site was developed by Davies Coop & Co. Ltd, a vertically integrated cotton firm that spun in Adelaide, wove in Sydney, and brought its dyeing and finishing operation to West Footscray. In 1952, Davies Coop formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., under an agreement with the Bradford Dyers' Association Ltd of England, taking exclusive Australian rights to the "Rigmel" shrink-control process. The West Footscray dye house was started that year and reported as nearing completion by late 1954, with Davies Coop having purchased 40 acres at the site. The manufacturing buildings, with their large south-lit sawtooth roofs carried on trusses, date from the early 1950s and represent a transitional phase in mid-century factory design. The site later operated under the Bradmill name, becoming a significant Australian denim and workwear fabric manufacturer. Textile production continued into the early 2000s before operations ceased, and the building was vacated by around 2007. The former Davies Coop / Bradmill complex is locally listed under the Maribyrnong Planning Scheme Heritage Overlay HO125 for its architectural, social and historic significance. This photograph, made in 2012 during the building's dormant years, records an interior that no longer exists in this form.