Crates

Wooden crates photographed inside the Newington Armament Depot and Nature Reserve in 2019. They sit on a concrete floor in one of the facility's brick storage buildings, worn and long unused, the last physical evidence of a logistics operation that ran for over a century. The depot was established in 1897 on the Parramatta River at Homebush, built by master builder John Howie across four contracts totalling £17,793. The original structures were Federation face brick, with cream brick trim, sandstone-capped gable ends, and polychromatic brickwork on three parapeted gables. The explosive magazines were designed with double walls, internal lamp passages, and surrounding earth mounds to direct any accidental blast upward rather than outward. Every surface material was chosen to prevent a spark: brass and timber rail tracks, copper earthing strips, wood-covered brass strips on the tram lines inside the stores. Management of the site transferred from the Commonwealth Military Forces to the Royal Australian Navy on 22 July 1921. Under the Navy, the depot became the primary armament storage and distribution point on the Parramatta River, connected by narrow-gauge railway and wharf to Garden Island, Cockatoo Island, and Spectacle Island. It stored and distributed gunpowder, explosive shells, cordite, fuses, depth charges, torpedoes, and rockets. During the Second World War, the depot serviced 5,127 Navy ship dockings, including more than 500 United States Navy ships and nearly 400 British vessels. At its wartime peak in October 1945, the broader depot employed 1,141 workers. The Royal Australian Navy conducted its last ammunition operation over the wharf on 14 December 1999 and vacated the site that same month. The NSW State Government received the northern precinct in January 2000. The southern two-thirds of the original site had already been redeveloped as the residential suburb of Newington for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games athletes' village. The crates in this photograph were still in place nearly 20 years after the last operation. The depot is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register (#01850).