SPOTSWOOD INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE WALK Preview

Here are a few simple tips to help you use the tour.

Audio

To listen to the audio press the play arrow button under each image to hear the commentary, the text is also available to read at each stop. To move to the next stop on the tour use the swipe gesture to change to the next screen.

Map

The map is very useful to find your way on the tour and you will need to use it to find the next stop.

Locate the map symbol and tap it to find your way on the tour. You can pinch and zoom the map to orientate yourself.

If your device has GPS (global positioning system) you can tap the GPS symbol to update your location on the map.

Images

You can scroll through the images while you listen to the audio at each stop by tapping the arrow.

To make the images much larger tap the loupe symbol, this will magnify the images and you will see the images all have captions with more information.

When the images are enlarged you can use the pinch and zoom gesture to look at details closely.

List

A list of stops can be used to see all the tour's stops at once. You can tap any of these stops to go directly to that number on the tour.

The tour has been designed so that you can walk the entire length in 2 hours, or if you would like to explore a smaller section at a time you can choose a number of stops on the route.

Walking Safely

To help you enjoy the tour please carry water with you and wear appropriate clothing for the weather, including comfortable walking shoes, hat and sunscreen. As the weather can change suddenly it may be a good idea to have an umbrella or raincoat handy.

Remain aware of your surroundings and personal belongings at all times. Due to high levels of ambient noise along parts of the tour route, we recommend you use ear buds or headphones. When crossing roads, please take off headphones and use the designated pedestrian crossings.

Some pathways on the tour route may be mixed use (pedestrians and bicycles), so it is best to keep to the left-hand side of the path. Parts of the tour route may not be accessible to prams, wheelchairs or bikes, depending on footpaths. If this is the case, please seek an alternate and safe route.

Toilets

A selection of public toilets in Spotswood can be accessed by checking the National Public Toilet Map: http://www.toiletmap.gov.au/map.aspx?id=70e75ad0-858a-4281-9d98-6d588988c3aa&type=area

Spotswood Shopping Hub

Cafes and businesses along Hudsons Road, near the Spotswood train station, are open for business 7 days a week.

Getting to Scienceworks Museum to Start the Tour

Public Transport Options

To plan your trip visit Metlink's Journey Planner. Transport options include:

• Public transport via train (Werribee and Williamstown Lines) to Spotswood; allow for a 10 minute walk.
• Ferry available daily from Southbank; Bay & River Cruises – 9682 9555 or 9654 1152; & Melbourne River Cruises – 9654 9599 or 9682 8686.
• Punt Service available from Port Melbourne to Spotswood; Westgate Punt Ferry Service http://www.westgatepunt.com/

Cyclists

Scienceworks is located close to bicycle routes along the Maribyrnong River, Hyde Street, the Yarra River and Hudsons Road. There is bicycle parking available near the front of the Scienceworks building. The Punt is great for bike riders coming from St Kilda/Port Melbourne and further afield.

Car Park

Free limited onsite parking is available at Scienceworks.

Wominjeka Welcome, Museum Victoria acknowledges that the Boonwurrung people are the traditional owners of the land on which this tour takes place.

Hi, my name is David Newton and I present at Scienceworks and the Melbourne Planeterium.

This walk takes us on a loop through Spotswood. As we pass the factories, warehouses, homes and shops that make up the suburb, we will learn about the people, industries and businesses that transformed this landscape from the Spottiswoode dairy farm to one of the state’s busiest manufacturing hubs.

In the 1840s, the first industries began working along this stretch of the Yarra River. Businesses seeking larger premises moved west as the city of Melbourne boomed in the 1880s, and soon homes were built to accommodate workers from the near-by factories. A railway line connecting Melbourne with Williamstown opened in 1859; passing through the area that became Spotswood, it ensured the suburb’s later development as an industrial centre, so that by the 1920s Spotswood was home to a number of national manufacturing businesses.

Today, Spotswood is a thriving suburb with ‘an old soul’. The local community is well served by shops and cafes along Hudsons Road, the sounds of manufacturing can still be heard, while the railway continues to provide easy commuter access to the city just 7km away.

Our tour begins outside Scienceworks, one of the newer additions to Spotswood's landscape. A museum of science and technology, its exhibitions and programs reflect the suburb's industrial heritage.

Opened in 1992, Scienceworks presents family-friendly programs that show the science behind the everyday world. Home to an innovative set of exhibitions as well as the Melbourne Planetarium and The Lightning Room, it offers experiences that will engage and fascinate visitors of all ages.

To find out what’s on at Scienceworks visit: museumvictoria.com.au/scienceworks

Use the map to find your way while you are walking. Head safely to the far end of the car park and turn left into Craig Street. Walk to the corner of Douglas Parade, then turn left. Here you will see the red brick buildings of the Pumping Station.

The Spotswood Pumping Station, located behind Scienceworks, was the heart of Melbourne’s first sewage system. It was built by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works between 1893 and 1897 to collect raw sewerage from a network of underground sewers. The Pumping Station was an essential piece of infrastructure for a city that by 1889 boasted a population of nearly 500,000: a city also beset by infectious diseases, like typhoid, which were contracted from poor personal hygiene, contaminated drinking water or food stuffs poisoned by effluent.

Local Footscray firm Garnsworthy & Smith was awarded the contract to prepare the site. Using steam-powered cranes and a small steam locomotive, they excavated a massive hole measuring 20 x 100 metres across, and 25 metres deep. They then constructed a series of tunnels, and 12 large pump wells which were strong enough to carry the weight of the building and heavy machinery.

Construction of the Pumping Station buildings commenced in late 1895 and took almost two years to complete.

To book a tour of the Pumping Station visit: museumvictoria.com.au/scienceworks or to learn more visit: http://museumvictoria.com.au/pumpingstation/

Turn left into Douglas Parade and walk 10 metres to the next stop.

This octagonal building is one of a pair of straining houses: the other is at the far end of the site. Raw sewage, full of household and industrial rubbish, drained into the 20-metre wells at the base of the straining houses. To prevent debris from blocking or damaging the pumps, a cage was lowered into the well. Lowering and raising the cages to catch and remove the debris was difficult and smelly work, so the job was often given to new employees as a way of testing their mettle. Once the sewage had been cleaned of extraneous debris, it flowed into a large intake sewer which runs the length of the Pumping Station building, then pumped from here to the treatment plant at Werribee.

Explore the Pumping Station through animations, oral histories, archival footage and a number of interviews with museum experts and former workers. http://museumvictoria.com.au/scienceworks/discoverycentre/pumpingstation/videos/

Keep walking to the gates and driveway in front of the Pumping Station Towers.

Only three women worked at the Pumping Station during its 68 years of operation. Between 1941 and 1943, at the height of the Second World War, bacteriologist Lucey Alford worked with Guy Parker to investigate the bacteria that was causing decay to the concrete sewer linings.

Lucey’s temporary appointment was not due to her scientific credentials but to an absence of suitably qualified men. But 26 year old Lucey was more than qualified for the task: after graduating from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1936, Lucey worked in the pathology department at the Royal Perth Hospital and with CSIRO in Sydney. She was the first woman to be employed in a technical role by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works.

Every day Lucey climbed 72 steps to the microbiology lab which was located on the top floor of the South Tower. As the first female worker at the Pumping Station, a separate toilet was specially installed in a small room off the landing opposite her laboratory. The following year two female laboratory assistants, Miss M McNeil and Miss S E Gorham, were employed to work with Lucey Alford, and they shared Lucey’s private, wallpapered lavatory with a view!

The next stop on this tour is also at this location.

These French Second Empire-style buildings are the two pump houses built to house the machinery that emptied Melbourne’s first sewerage system.

These pump houses initially contained four, and later a total of ten, steam-powered pumping engines. Between 1918 and 1938 electrical pumps were installed to take over the main pumping load. When the steam engines were retired, five were kept in reserve and are preserved today. Spotswood was selected as the site of Melbourne’s first pumping station because it is the lowest point in Melbourne, meaning sewage could flow from throughout the city via gravity.

For more information on the Pumping Station visit: www.museumvictoria.com.au/pumpingstation

Explore the Pumping Station through animations, oral histories, archival footage and a number of interviews with museum experts and former workers. http://museumvictoria.com.au/scienceworks/discoverycentre/pumpingstation/videos/

Walk 100 metres along this grassed area until you come to the bluestone wall. Carefully pass the telegraph pole to listen to the next stop.

This wall has been repaired over the years, but it was first built in 1897 making it the only visible remnant of the Melbourne Glass Bottle Works’ factory. The company was established in South Melbourne in 1872, but moved here in 1890 as the business expanded and needed better access to the river for transport. The new works housed the latest technology from Europe, and employed British and German glass workers who migrated to Melbourne specifically to work for the company.

This site has been home to three significant glass manufacturing companies since 1897: Melbourne Glass Bottle Works, Australian Glass Manufacturers (AGM), and Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI), which operated a factory on this site from 1939 until 1997. ACI dominated glass manufacture in Australia in the 20th century, making everything from bottles to window glass.

Continue along the length of the bluestone wall until you reach the footpath on the corner of Simcock Avenue and Douglas Parade.

Built between 1968 and 1978, the West Gate Bridge has become an integral part of Melbourne's freeway network and a vital transport link connecting the western suburbs to the centre of Melbourne. The bridge replaced a steam-operated ferry service for vehicles, which had operated across the lower Yarra between Fisherman's Bend and Newport from 1873.

At the time of its construction, the bridge was an engineering marvel because it included one of the longest cable-stayed steel spans in the world, then a new and innovative construction method.

Tragically, a series of design errors and communication problems led to the collapse of a span during construction on 15 October 1970, killing 35 workers and seriously injuring 18 others. The findings of a Royal Commission into the collapse led to significant redesign work on the bridge, to ensure that it would be safe and durable.

A memorial to the workers who lost their lives in the disaster is located at the foot of pier 10, on the opposite side of Douglas Parade.

The next stop on this tour is also at this location.

Stony Creek flows underneath the span of the West Gate Bridge. From the 1840s until the early 1900s, this waterway was the site of many quarries that played an important part in connecting Melbourne to the rest of the world. Early local landowner John Stewart Spotswood and his family were among those who worked the quarries.

Basalt stone, colloquially known as bluestone, was extracted and carried out to ships at anchor in Hobson’s Bay to serve as ballast. The weight of ballast in the bottom of a ship’s hull helped to prevent it from capsizing in high seas. Basalt was also a common building material in 19th century Melbourne.

The next stop on this tour is also at this location.

Near the Mobil Oil storage facility that can be seen on the far side of Stony Creek, is the site of Spotswood’s earliest manufacturing. In 1847 Joseph Raleigh built a short-lived salting works for drying and preserving meat, and then in the late 1860s/early 1870s, the Victoria Meat Preserving Company operated a canning factory on the site. Stock was herded from the Western Districts of Victoria to paddocks near Stony Creek, and the finished product was shipped via the Yarra River. The Meat Preserving Company was a ‘noxious trade’, a term used to describe businesses that produced polluting refuse, such as meat works, tanneries and smelters. By the 1880s more than half the factory workers in the Footscray region, including Spotswood, were employed in these kinds of businesses, using the river as an open drain.

Nothing remains of the Victoria Meat Preserving Company’s factory, but its location here at Spotswood reminds us how essential the river and sea were to the growth of early Melbourne.

Walk 30 metres up Simcock Avenue, until you are opposite the red brick building. There is no need to cross the road.

The red brick building on the north side of Simcock Avenue was built in 1916 as the first company headquarters for Australian Glass Manufacturers Pty Ltd (AGM), which had formed the previous year through the merger of the Melbourne Glass Bottle Works with similar glassmaking businesses in Adelaide and Sydney. It is surprising to think that the company that dominated glass manufacturing across Australia was run from such a small building, but it remained the company’s registered office until 1932 when its offices moved to Spencer Street in the city. The building was handed to the company’s social club for workers’ recreational activities.

The block next door, now a recreational park, was the site of company housing from the 1920s until the 1980s.

The next stop on the tour is on the empty block behind you. Look for the wooden beams that run through the remains of the concrete floor.

This entire block used to be covered by a complex of Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) factory buildings, many of which were built during the Second World War to house munitions factories. The site closest to the river-with the wood foundations running through the concrete-was the site of the Shell Machining Annex. Built in 1939, it was the first munitions annex on the site. In this building, forged metal casings for anti-aircraft and artillery shells were machined, to be filled with explosives at a separate site.

After the war, this building was taken over by ACI Metal Stamping and Spinning, later known as ACI Closures, which made lids for a huge range of jars and bottles produced by ACI. Large presses stamped out blank discs which were then formed into the final shape for the lids. Rubber and cork sealing rings were also stamped out and pressed into the lids.

Walk 40 metres along Simcock Avenue and look for the remains of a staircase.

These stairs are all that remains of a block of two-storey, two-bedroom flats built for tradesmen working at the Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) glassworks in 1940-41. This part of the ACI site played an important role manufacturing munitions for Australia’s war effort, and these flats were built to ensure that essential workers were nearby.

Housing workers on-site had many benefits for both employees and the company. Tom Marshall and his young family lived in flat 8 in the early 1970s. Tom remembers that a similar flat in near-by Footscray cost $16 a week, but ACI only charged $8 rent. In return for convenience and low rent, Tom was effectively on-call day and night. He didn’t mind, because the rent he saved and extra shifts he was able to do helped him save a deposit for a house.

These flats were occupied by employees of ACI until the 1980s.

Walk to the corner of Booker Street and Simcock Avenue for the next stop.

Spotswood has always been at the heart of Australia’s glass manufacturing industry. This site on the corner of Booker Street and Simcock Avenue is home to two working glass furnaces that are called ‘tanks’ in the industry. The plant was purchased by O-I formerly known as Owens-Illinois in 1997, but the furnaces were built by Australian Glass Manufacturers (AGM) and its successor Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI), which operated the site from 1939.

The block is part of the land purchased by the glassworks in 1908. It was not built on until the 1920s, when a new generation of glass furnaces and automated production processes were introduced, replacing older hand-blown bottle-making techniques. By 1936, 2 million bottles and jars were being made on site each week.

The smoke stack closest to Simcock Avenue is part of the furnace known as Tank 4. It is here that ‘stubbies’-the amber-coloured 375ml beer bottles–are made. Stubbies were invented by ACI in 1967 to compete with steel and aluminium beverage cans, and have been produced on this site for Carlton and United Breweries ever since.

Head 100 metres along Booker Street keeping an eye out for the remains of the yellow bollards which mark the next stop.

This location was previously occupied by factory buildings and a moderne style entrance to the site, the curving frontages wrapping either side of the driveway. There were two driveways here, with a guard booth between them and the site canteen above. The buildings to either side were built to house the Engineering section of the company, and were constructed in stages between the early 1930s and early 1940s.

The stairs that remain today, to the right of the current driveway, were located at one end of the earliest building constructed here for the Engineering section. The building was demolished along with the rest of the Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) site, in 2011-12. After a century of industry, it is now in transition to a new use, just as Spotswood as a whole is gradually changing.

Keep walking along Booker Street to 'Blair Athol', the two-storey house next door to Scienceworks Museum.

This two-storey brick residence, named 'Blair Athol', was built by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works MMBW in 1895 to house the Managing Engineer of Spotswood Pumping Station. It was named after the Scottish town where the first Managing Engineer, Thomas Robertson-Smith, was born.

The house was unusually orientated as it faced away from the street, with the front entrance and cast-iron balcony facing eastwards to command a fine view of the Pumping Station and river beyond. The Managing Engineer was on call 24 hours a day, in case of an emergency, such as an accident, the sudden breakdown of equipment, or an event of heavy rain and flooding that might require additional pumping crews to be brought in.

'Blair Athol' was home to MMBW engineers up until 1965, when the Pumping Station ceased operations. It is now used as office accommodation for Scienceworks staff.

Safely cross Booker Street at the left-hand corner of Hudsons Road.

Between the late 1920s and 1950s this site near the corner of Booker Street and Hudsons Road was a company sports ground, used by cricket and football teams from the Glassworks. The A.G.M. Cricket Club, known as the ‘Australs’ had a great deal of success. It joined the Williamstown-Footscray District Cricket Association in 1925-26, was runner-up in the competition in 1929 and 1930, and then won from 1931 to 1934. The following year the team then joined the ‘Turf’ grade of the Victorian Junior Cricket Association, and the company funded the installation of a turf pitch at the ground so that they could compete.

In 1954 Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) decided to reclaim the land and constructed a factory for their ‘Crown Crystal’ glassware, which opened in 1959. Here they made pressed crystal products, such as lenses, sugar bowls, fruit bowls and beer jugs. The venture was not a success and the plant closed in 1963.

Continue along the left-hand side of Hudsons Road to listen to the next stop.

As you walk up Hudsons Road you can hear the automated process of glass manufacture in action. Behind the red brick buildings of the O-I factory are two working glass furnaces. Built by Australian Glass Manufacturers in 1939, the furnaces have been in constant use since.

A conveyer belt over Hudsons Road used to link the factory site to the large cream brick building on the left hand side of the street. This was the company’s boxing and packing factory. Newly made bottles and jars were ferried across on the belt, straight into boxes ready for dispatch around the country.

Continue along the left-hand side of Hudsons Road until you reach the corner of Bernard Street.

The corner of Bernard Street and Hudsons Road was once the site of the Australian Consolidated Industries bicycle sheds. For much of the 20th century, factory workers cycled to work from nearby suburbs, so the streets around the factory were full of men and women on bicycles arriving for shifts. Sometimes staff received a ‘call-in’ at odd hours of the night. In the 1950s it was the job of a youngster on a bicycle to knock at the door of the employee to request he come in. Tradesmen were usually happy to jump out of bed in the middle of the night to perform a quick task, as they were remunerated with four hours pay!

At the rear of the site are piles of broken glass. These are not piles of production mistakes, but in fact one of the main ingredients in bottle production. Broken or waste glass is known as ‘cullet’, and in Australia between 40% and 80% of new glass bottles are made of cullet from recycled collections. Adding cullet to new glass improves the quality and reduces production costs by reducing raw material requirements and providing big energy savings. Some manufacturers claim that up to 75% of the energy used to make bottles from raw ingredients (sand, sodium carbonate and calcium oxide) can be saved by using cullet. In order for the quality to be maintained it is essential for cullet to be kept strictly separated into the three main glass colours – clear, green and amber.

The glass works have been recycling this material continuously since 1937. In the mid-20th century, the factory paid a small amount for the return of bottles that could be used for cullet. During the Second World War, children would fill billycarts with bottles, then form queues along Booker Street with their valuable deliveries.

Safely cross Bernard Street to the footpath on the other side of the road, where you can stand to listen to the next stop.

The houses in Bernard Street, and Robb Street were built to house workers from Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) during the 1950s. A photograph from 1956, which can be seen in the image gallery for this stop, gives us a window through time to see how the street looked just after the company had built it.

These houses were built specifically for skilled glass blowers recruited by ACI from England under the ‘ten pound Pom’ sponsored immigration scheme. Most were ‘Geordies’ who came from the Newcastle area with their families and worked making high quality glass products by hand at the Crown Crystal Glass factory that ACI built near the corner of Hudsons Road and Booker Street, just one block away.

After the Crystal Glass factory closed in 1963, the houses were rented to other employees from the glassworks until sold by the company in the 1980s.

As you walk along Bernard Street look through the trees on the left-hand side of the block to catch glimpses of the glass cullet mounds. Continue to the end of Bernard Street and turn right into Craig Street.

The ten identical timber homes at 52-70 Craig Street are among the oldest dwellings in Spotswood. They appear on an 1894 Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works plan of the area. The map reveals just how few people were living in Spotswood at the end of the 19th century. Only 23 houses were shown on this side of the railway lines, among the factories, paddocks and abandoned quarry holes.

Continue up Craig Street and turn left into McNeilage Street, walk to the end of the street turning right into Morwick Street and then left into Hall street to continue the tour.

Standing on the street and looking down the driveway at 144-150 Hall Street, we can see a curious castellated ‘Mediaeval’ brick building with a corrugated iron roof. The building was constructed for Cornish safety fuse company Bickford, Smith & Co in 1912. The company had begun its Australian operations in 1888, taking over the Bendigo Fuse Factory to make fuse for the local gold mines.

In 1925 Bickford Smith merged with global explosives producer Nobel Industries and several smaller firms to form Nobel (Australia) Ltd, which in turn became part of Imperial Chemical Industries Australia and New Zealand, in 1936. With the changing technology to electric detonators, demand for traditional safety fuse cord declined and the factory closed in 1938.

In 1945, RVB Engineering Products took over the site, which they shared with their neighbours Goetz until the late 1990s. Founded by Roy Victor Butler in 1935, the firm became Australia’s first specialist manufacturer of car horns and tyre gauges.

Continue 40 metres along Hall Street to the next stop.

This moderne style building at 136 - 138 Hall Street that has recently been renovated into a set of commercial offices, was once the site of a number of important Australian engineering developments. It was built in 1939 for William Goetz & Sons Ltd, an engineering firm founded in Port Melbourne in 1875.

World War II broke out as the firm was preparing to move to Spotswood. The company doubled its production by working around the clock, making machine tools for Australian arms and munitions factories. Goetz co-ordinated several smaller engineering firms to manufacture 750 precision machines in just ten months. Later in the war, they were part of a group of firms that raised Australia’s canned food-making capacity to 1.25 billion cans per year, the nation’s estimated annual requirement at the time.

Following the war, Goetz & Sons continued to manufacture machinery here for sheet metal, can making and precision engineering equipment. The firm closed in 1999.

You can see an early company sign above the building from the opposite side of the road. If it is safe to cross, you can do so, watching out for cars as Hall Street is very busy. You will need to head back to the footpath on the other side of the road to continue on the tour. Turn back the way you came and walk parallel to the train line toward the Train Station.

As you are walking back toward the Train Station and Hudsons Road you will see part of the Williamstown line, the earliest government-built railway line in Victoria. Begun in 1856 by a private company to connect Spencer Street Station, now known as Southern Cross Station, and Williamstown Pier, it was completed by government contractors in January 1859. Williamstown was then Melbourne’s main goods port so the railway line was an essential piece of infrastructure. The line also built a privately-built track to Geelong and, in 1862, the first inland railway to Bendigo and beyond. On the far side of the railway lines you can see the verandah of the Spotswood Railway stores platform.

The Williamstown line was crucial to Spotswood’s development as an industrial area. When city-based businesses were looking to expand in the 1880s, the railway enabled coal for fuel and raw materials to be easily transported to the new factories, while bulky products such as agricultural implements or petroleum products could be easily distributed to customers. As the Victorian Railway network grew, the Williamstown line was the main route for moving wool and wheat to the port.

Keep an eye out for the next stop at 168 Hall Street.

Situated at 168 Hall Street is 'Alloa'. In 1908 William McNeilage, the recently appointed Manager of the Glass Bottle Works, moved out of the house his company had provided for him on Booker Street, into ‘Alloa’; a recently built, 12 roomed, red-brick villa. Originally the grounds surrounding the house covered the entire corner of the block.

A member of council, McNeilage was the Mayor of Williamstown from 1911 to 1913. His son later managed the Bickford Smith and Co. Safety Fuse Factory at the far end of the street.

McNeillage sold ‘Alloa’ in the 1920s. It was later purchased by Australian Glass Manufacturers who converted it into two flats for staff.

Continue along Hall Street until you reach the pedestrian crossing in front of the Train Station. Cross the street, and take the underpass which brings you out on Hope Street. Turn left and walk to the station entrance.

When the railway station opened here on 1 February 1878, many wondered why the Victorian Railways had built a passenger platform ‘in the midst of a bleak and inhospitable moor,’ because there were so few houses or factories nearby.

The Argus newspaper revealed that John Woods, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Commissioner for Railways, had built a villa in Hall Street, near the station. Woods’ friend Thomas Bent, Parliamentarian and notorious land speculator, had acquired the Spottiswoode Estate and was subdividing land along the railway line.

Originally the station was called Edom, but it was changed to Bayswater in September 1881 and Spottiswoode a month later, before finally settling on Spotswood in 1905.

By the early 20th century, thousands of passengers were passing through Spotswood each day, travelling to and from the local factories and homes. The current station buildings were built in 1912; the Edwardian Baroque-style buildings replaced a corrugated iron shed and wooden platform built here in 1878.

Cross the road. With the station in front of you, turn to your right and walk to the end of Hope Street.

Rate books show that these four brick houses at 1-7 Hope Street were built in 1891, making them among the oldest homes in Spotswood. They were built at the end of Melbourne’s great land boom, which saw the city’s boundaries expand in all directions during the 1880s.

The rate books also tell us that the people who lived in these houses worked nearby. John Salkeld, a glass blower at the Melbourne Glass Bottle Works was one of the first tenants at No 1 Hope Street, while the houses at numbers 5 and 7 Hope Street were built for Robert Williams. Williams is believed to have been a ‘Roadmaster’ who controlled the train shunting in the Victorian Railways’ Ways and Works Branch, located on Melbourne Road, Spotswood. The Williams family lived in Hope Street until the 1950s.

Turn right into McLister Street. The next stop is directly in front of you.

Spotswood and neighbouring Newport were home to three important facilities of the Victorian Railways. The Stores Branch here on McLister Street, the Ways and Works Branch on Melbourne Road and the Railway Workshops in Newport.

Stores Branch was the distribution hub for all consumable items used on the Victorian Railways from toilet paper to tools, uniforms, stationary, light globes, nails, nuts and bolts, screws, lamp oil, paint and padlocks. By 1929, the Victorian Railways network extended over 4,491 miles (7,228 km) and had a workforce of 27,900 employees.

Designed by Victorian Railways chief architect, James Fawcett, the Stores Branch building was constructed between 1924 and 1927 in a classically-influenced interwar style with a bold cement-block façade. The main office is the most intact part of the stores complex. The two Canary Island palms at the front of the building are part of the original 1920s landscaping.

Turn around and walk back along Hope Street. Stop at the intersection on Hudsons Road, the main shopping street in Spotswood.

Many families had businesses along Hudsons Road, perhaps one of the most prolific were the Picone family. They have a long history in Spotswood, with relations running stores on either side of Hudsons Road for decades. In 1921 Joseph Picone, who migrated to Australia from Italy, had a green grocer’s business at number 91, while his son Thomas began a boot-maker’s business at number 80. Thomas’ wife Anna gradually built up a haberdashery business in the shop, which their daughter Roma ran until the early 2000s. The Roy Picone stand at the nearby oval is named for another member of the family, in recognition of his long service to the Spotswood Cricket and Football clubs.

Spotswood is not a big suburb, and before the Second World War it was even smaller. These shops tied the residential and industrial areas together, providing food and goods for the home as well as lunches for workers.

Turn back toward Scienceworks. Walk safely across the train tracks at the pedestrian crossing, then stand on the corner of Hudsons Road and Hall Street for the next stop.

This weatherboard and corrugated iron signal box was built in 1890, to control the level crossing gates, and traffic between the main rail line and the industrial sidings near the station. It incorporated a patent McKenzie & Holland interlocking lever frame, an important type of rail safety equipment first introduced by the Victorian Railways in 1876. The interlocking lever frame prevented level crossing gates from being closed or track points from being moved unless the signals were first set to the correct position, thus preventing accidents caused by signalmen setting the wrong signals.

McKenzie & Holland were originally a British firm, but in 1878 established their ‘Semaphore Ironworks’ at nearby Newport, to make signal equipment for the Victorian Railways, and later throughout Australia.

Automatic boom barriers were installed replacing the level crossing gates at Spotswood in 1986 and the signal box closed in 2001, following closure of the last siding.

From here you can see the Spottiswoode Hotel. Cross safely to this location.

The Spottiswoode Hotel has stood here since 1888, handily located between the factory sites and the railway station that many workers used when traveling between work and home.

The Hotel’s first proprietor and licensee was George Spotswood, who was born in Williamstown in 1841. He was the son of John Stewart Spotswood, one of the first people to take up crown land in the district in the early 1840s. Spotswood’s 117 acre sheep and dairy farming property originally extended from the riverfront up through this site to Melbourne Road.

In the mid-1870s, the notorious land speculator and parliamentarian Thomas Bent MLA, acquired the Spottiswoode Estate and began subdividing and selling the land for residential development. George Spotswood purchased this site in 1878, but had to wait a decade before there was a sufficient local population or workforce to open his pub.

Head along Hall Street and keep an eye out for the railway sidings that can been seen 40 metres ahead.

The remains of railway sidings, private spur lines running off the main line to serve specific businesses, can be seen all over Spotswood. At this location the sidings crossed Hall Street into Lennon's Agricultural works, and was one of the main sidings that delivered coal for fuel to the Sewage Pumping Station, the glassworks and factories, delivering raw materials such as wood and steel, while outward traffic included agricultural implements, machinery and petroleum products.

Proximity to the railway was the key reason why so many industries were established at Spotswood. By 1930, Spotswood was the second busiest railway freight centre in Victoria, after the Spencer Street rail yards. Traffic through the station represented a tenth of the State’s total rail revenue, with 90 percent coming from the transport of petroleum products. These sidings are a tangible reminder of just how busy the factories of Spotswood were during the suburb’s industrial heyday.

Keep walking 100 metres to the footpath on the corner of Hall Street and Simcock Avenue.

The first factory on this site was built by Sydney engineering firm Hudson Brothers, after which Hudson Street is named. In 1887 Hudson's gained a contract to build up to 1,000 goods trucks for the Victorian Railways. In 1888 the site was taken over by Hugh Lennon, a well-established firm of agricultural implement and machinery manufacturers, who relocated from North Melbourne because of the large site and railway access to customers in country Victoria and beyond.

Hugh Lennon trained in Scotland as a ploughmaker, ship builder and engineer before migrating to Australia in 1859. In 1866, he became one of Victoria’s first specialist ploughmakers. Lennon died in 1886, but the business reformed as The Hugh Lennon Plow and Machine Company in 1898 and continued to operate on the Spotswood site until 1973. At its peak the works extended back to Raleigh Street and employed 200 workers.

The next few stops are at this location.

The vacant block on the corner of Hall Street and Simcock Avenue was once the site of T Robinson & Co’s Agricultural Implement Works, a company that was described in 1888 as 'one of the largest manufacturing firms of millwrights and agricultural engineers in the southern hemisphere'. Founded in 1853 and initially based in central Melbourne, the company had moved to Spotswood by 1891.

By the early 1900s, the firm’s products under the ‘Federal’ brand name could be found on farms throughout Australia, as well as overseas. By 1914, the firm’s Spotswood works had sprawled over 13 acres and employed almost 600 workers.

T Robinson & Co was purchased by dairy equipment maker Baltic Simplex Machinery Company in 1947 and the new owners continued production and distribution from this site until the late 1970s. The factory’s corrugated iron sheds, built in a style described as ‘corrugated classical’, were demolished in 1995.

In 1885, Frederick J Phillips established a factory nearby to manufacture Oleomargarine, a type of margarine made from animal fat rather than vegetable oil. By 1889 the factory had been taken over by the ‘Victorian Export Canning Works’, a company that went on to be one of the key suppliers of canned meat for Australian troops serving in the Second Boer War (1899-1902).

These works were one of the last factories processing animal products here in Spotswood. From the 1880s this type of industry was in decline and was gradually replaced by larger, more modern businesses like the glass works, agricultural implement makers and oil terminals, reflecting Australia’s increasing industrial sophistication at the turn of the 20th century.

The rise of motor transport in the early 20th century led to Spotswood, and the neighbouring suburbs of Newport and Yarraville, becoming the centre of Victoria’s petroleum storage. Products such as petrol, kerosene and diesel were pumped from tanker ships berthed in the river up to the storage tanks for distribution throughout Victoria. The British Imperial Oil Company, known today as ‘Shell’, built the first ‘tank farm’ at Spotswood in 1915 and within two decades all major oil companies had facilities in the area.

The tanks you can see on the other side of the river have been owned by Mobil since the 1990s, but the site was initially developed in 1928 by Atlantic Union Company, which in 1962 was re-branded Esso.

Head back along Hall Street to Hudsons Road. Turn left toward Scienceworks to continue the tour.

You can still make out the words ‘International Harvester Company of Australia’ on the other side of the long shed at the rear of this site. Built in 1922, it is one of the last remaining buildings in Spotswood in which agricultural equipment was made and assembled, a remnant of a major industry in the area between the 1880s and the 1970s.

Formed in 1902, International Harvester (IH) quickly established itself as a worldwide brand. In Australia they competed aggressively with local manufacturers like Hugh Lennon, T Robinson & Co., and H V McKay. IH formed an Australian subsidiary in 1912 and this large building at Spotswood was built for the company in 1922 as a product storage and assembly warehouse.

This site remained International Harvester’s main Australian works until the opening of their large factory at North Shore, Geelong, in 1939. It was acquired by the Australian Consolidated Industries glassworks after World War Two.

Our tour concludes here. We hope you have enjoyed discovering some of the amazing stories that belong to the people, places and businesses of Spotswood, undeniably one of the most important manufacturing hubs in Melbourne's history. To complete the loop head down Hudsons Road to Scienceworks or back toward the Spotswood Train Station. You may like to have something to eat and drink at the local eateries near-by.