Annex Washroom

The annex washroom at Portland Cement Works is a small room with cracked tiles on the walls, derelict fixtures standing under accumulated industrial dust, and a single window doing what it can with the available light. The grey that comes through it falls across a floor and surfaces that have not seen regular use in decades. Nothing has been cleared out or tidied up. It reads as a room that was simply stopped. The Munitions Annex building, of which this washroom forms part, was constructed in 1943 during the wartime expansion of the Portland Cement Works Precinct. The wider site at Williwa Street, Portland, had been operating since 1902, when the Commonwealth Portland Cement Company commenced cement production under the "Union" brand on 4 August that year. At its peak in 1911, the works employed 608 people. The town of Portland grew directly from the factory: the settlement was gazetted in 1894, named for the cement-making process itself. Cement production at Portland Cement Works continued through several ownership changes. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers UK assumed control in the late 1940s, followed by Blue Circle Southern Cement Ltd in 1974, and then Boral Limited in 1992. Production ceased in November 1991. The limestone quarries on the broader site remained operational until 1998, supplying crushing material to the Maldon works before final decommissioning. The Portland Cement Works Precinct was added to the NSW State Heritage Register on 3 August 2012, listed as item #01739, meeting all seven significance criteria. The Munitions Annex building was assessed as economically unfeasible for adaptive reuse. The washroom within it survives, tiles cracked, fixtures dusty, the window still letting in a grey and diminished light. This photograph was made in 2018.