Mezzanine

The mezzanine at Eveleigh Paint Shop runs along one side of the workshop hall, set above the main floor at about half the height of the roof. It is a steel-framed gallery with a checkerplate floor and a railing along the open side. From the mezzanine, the entire workshop floor is visible below: the tracks, the carriages, the inspection pits, the paint-mixing area. The mezzanine itself is currently used for storage and as office space for the workshop staff. Workbenches and small tools sit along the back wall. From here, the foreman's vantage point of a working Victorian workshop is fully visible.

Mezzanines like this were standard in Victorian-era workshops as a way of getting more useful floor area into a tall single-volume building. At Eveleigh, the mezzanine has had several uses across the building's working life: as a foreman's office, as a parts store, and currently as a multi-purpose storage and admin space. The view from the mezzanine has not changed substantially since 1888. The floor below has carried different rolling stock through the decades, but the geometry of the workshop, the sawtooth roof, the windows, and the layout of the tracks are all original. The mezzanine is the place from which the whole story of the building can be read in one glance.