Steel Walkway

A grated steel walkway cuts through the interior of the former Davies Coop / Bradmill factory on Francis Street, Yarraville, receding into shadow with rusting tubular handrails on both sides. Narrow vertical gaps in the wall to the right admit thin strips of daylight, falling across the worn floor in a steady rhythm. The steel framing bordering the passage is intact but heavily corroded, a surface record of the years between closure and the camera's arrival in 2012. The West Footscray site was developed by Davies Coop and Co. Ltd from 1952. That year 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 wholly owned subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., to run dyeing and finishing on land already acquired at West Footscray. The dye house, begun in 1952, was expected to be finished by November 1954. Davies Coop had purchased 40 acres at West Footscray by that point, completing a vertically integrated cotton operation: spinning in Adelaide, weaving in Sydney, dyeing and finishing in Victoria. The site later operated under the Bradmill name as a denim and workwear fabric manufacturer, becoming one of the larger textile plants in the West Footscray and Brooklyn industrial belt. Textile production ceased around 2001 as tariff protection was wound back and cheaper imports undercut domestic manufacture. The factory sat largely empty for several years before the site was sold in 2015 and a residential redevelopment by Frasers Property Australia and Irongate was eventually announced. The heritage-listed boiler house and proofing building were retained within the redevelopment masterplan. The service corridor in this photograph was not among the fabric carried through. The walkway, the handrails, and the geometry of light through the wall gaps exist now only in the photographic record.