Boiler Number 1

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 21mm · f/8.0 · 1/15 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Boiler Number 1 dominates the cavernous turbine hall of White Bay Power Station. Its immense, rusting steel structure stands as a monument to Sydney's industrial past, now silent and derelict.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Boiler Number 1
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-025
Process: Giclée
Captured: 13 November 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1/15 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 21 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Boiler No. 1 at White Bay Power Station stands in the northern section of the boiler house, the surviving member of the four original Babcock & Wilcox boilers that fed the A Station generators. The boiler is a tall cross-drum cylindrical pressure vessel, the casing rising to roughly thirty metres from the floor to the roof of the building. The casing is darkened from decades of firing. The furnace door at the front of the boiler is partly visible; the upper drums and the water-wall tubes wrap the working surface above the firing chamber. Steel walkways at multiple levels access the boiler, with the original iron walkways removed from some sections.

Boiler No. 1 is the only one of the four original A Station boilers to remain in situ. Boilers Nos. 2, 3, and 4 were removed during the 1990s decontamination program, leaving voids where they once stood. The Conservation Management Plan designates Boiler No. 1 as Grade 1 significance and requires its retention. Each of the original boilers produced 30,000 lb/h of steam at 205 psi and 588 °F across the working life of A Station from 1917 onwards. The whole plant closed on Christmas Day 1983. Boiler No. 1 has stood in place ever since.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The steel framework of Boiler No. 1 rises through multiple levels, stripped back to its structural bones. Rust colours every beam and cross-brace in deep ochre and brown. A concrete platform cuts across the middle ground, separating the upper lattice of gantries and walkways from the darker spaces below. Down at ground level, debris sits between support columns where weeds push through cracked concrete. Light enters from the left, catching dust and the rough texture of corroded metal.

Brett Patman

The series

White Bay Power Station

2015–2018 · 124 photographs

Bricklayers laid 3.7 million bricks at White Bay across three and a quarter years of Phase 1 construction, on Wanngal Country at the western edge of Rozelle. The New South Wales Government Railways ran the build through its own Construction Department. By 3 July 1913, boilers and alternators were running before the buildings that housed them were complete.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.