Launder Yard

The launder yard stretches along the brick facade of the 'C' and 'D' Briquette Factories at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, the building's full length visible across a cracked concrete forecourt. Broken windows run in rows across the multi-storey elevation. A large rusted cyclone separator occupies the mid-ground, standing clear of the wall. A red fire hose reel sits mounted to the brickwork at the left end of the facade. The yard reads as a long open run of pavement against the tall factory front, the plant's scale set out across the frame.

The C and D factories behind this yard were part of the two briquette factories built here, from an original plan of four cut short when the 1951 to 1953 funding halt cancelled the third and fourth. The briquetting presses inside were supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract for two factories rated at 2,100 tons per day. A Boxing Day fire in 2003 destroyed the coal cross-over conveyor feeding the B, C and D plants, after which only A plant continued and the complex ran at a fraction of its intended capacity. The factories produced their first commercial briquettes in December 1959. Brett photographed the launder yard on 29 March 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.