Armadale State Brickworks Dust Room & Machinery Shed (fmr)

Statement of Significance

The Armadale State Brickworks (fmr) is a utilitarian example of a mid twentieth century factory designed around the brickmaking process and housing a significant and visually impressive collection of machines. The place clearly demonstrates the brickmaking process from the delivery of the primary material through the crushing process to the pressing and drying of the bricks. The place has associations with the development of the brickmaking industry in the Armadale district dating from 1897 through to the present day. The brick presses manufactured by Thos. C. Fawcett in the 1920s have historic significance as the only known extant examples of their type in Australia. The place represents an example of an industry established as a result of the Scaddan Labour Government’s Trading Concerns Act of 1912. The place was established as a result of building material shortages in the Post World War 2 period. The place has a very high social and historical significance as demonstrated by the work reunion held in 2002 attended by approximately 400 people, and by its identification by the Armadale & Districts Brickworks Preservation Group and the Institution of Engineers (WA Branch) as a site containing equipment worthy of preservation. The place has associations with the post war immigration program through the employment of migrant labour.

Physical Description

A steel framed, corrugated asbestos cement clad former industrial facility comprising a dust room and machine shed designed around five pan mills, elevators, return conveyors and spinners for extracting fine aggregate for brick making, and eight brick presses. The Armadale State Brickworks (fmr) is located on the western side of the South Western Highway approximately five kms south of the Armadale town centre. The site comprises an area of approximately twelve hectares and is currently an operating brick yard and sales centre. The building constructed as part of the development of the Armadale Brickworks No. 2. plant in the 1950s is located on the southern section of the site and accessed from the main entrance road located adjacent to the southern side boundary. The main extant industrial building comprises a large machine shed constructed of steel frame clad with corrugated asbestos cement sheets with a narrow, double volume structure along the eastern end that comprises the dust room. The dust room is open on the southern end. The ground on which the building is constructed slopes down from the main road , and therefore the entry to the dust room from the east is at ground level, while steps down from the road on the south provide access to the machine shed locate don the lower side of the site. The interior of the dust room comprises a long narrow space with a high roof. It is linked to the remainder of the building by a staircase located approximately in the centre of the space. The dust room contains five sets of crushing machines that are spaced equally along the room. The crushing machine system comprises timber box framed elevators and return conveyors linked to the five Bradley and Craven pan mills (dating from the 1920s and 1930s) and to the five Monier ‘spinners’ that replaced the earlier machines in the 1970s. All the machines and associated elements that comprise the five systems remain extant. The process produced a large quantity of dust, hence the name of the dust room. The adjacent machine shed contains the eight Thos. C. Fawcett brickmaking presses (dating from the 1920s). These are arranged in a line parallel to each other along the eastern end of the shed. Each press has an electrical supply adjacent and all originally had timber tool cupboards. Some of the cupboards and other elements are extant while others have been removed in the period since the closure of the plant. Some of the brick presses have had parts removed, possibly to repair working presses prior to the closure. Brass tags identifying the presses remain extant. Approximately centrally along the row of presses, a steel framed mesh enclosure indicates the former foreman’s office. This remains largely as left at the time of closure complete with desk, tools and even a pair of boots. On the wall at the back of the former office some names have been marked on the wall lining. There is a saw tooth roof with skylights over the section of the machine shed that contains the brick presses. The remainder of the building previously contained the zig zag kilns (not extant) and a toilet and shower block (extant).

History

Construction of the Armadale State Brickworks (fmr) began in the early 1950s with part of the plant going on line in 1953/54. The plans for the No. 2 Pressed Brickworks were drawn by the State Government’s Public Works Department (PWD). Those sections related specifically to the crushing plant and brickmaking operations were done in association with equipment suppliers including Redler Conveyors Ltd from Gloucestershire, England and Thos. C. Fawcett Ltd from Leeds, England. The plant supplied by the Thos. C. Fawcett engineering company included second-hand patented brickmaking and pressing machines dating from the 1920s (still extant, located in the machine shed). The pan mills dating from the 1920s/1930s (located in the dust room) were produced by English engineering company Bradley & Craven Ltd, Wakefield. The No. 2 Pressed Brickworks comprised two parts: the dust room in which the primary material went through the crushing process; and, the machine shed in which the brick presses and kilns operated. The zig zag kilns in the No. 2 section of the brickworks were demolished in the mid 1980s but it was not until the 1990s that brickmaking ceased entirely at the former State Brickworks. The Thos. C. Fawcett brickmaking and pressing machines were used right up to this time.

Integrity/Authenticity

Moderate to High High

Condition

Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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