Abandoned Places – Page 4 of 32

April 20, 2017

Urban Exploring: The Bottle Chamber

An Adelaide explorer kindly showed us this spot early last year. Knowing that we’re keen on seeing hidden abandoned places they contacted us and we arranged for them to show us their find. Impressed with what we saw, we asked if we could do a post about it…

Adelaide has a long and proud history in bottle manufacturing. We weren’t self-sufficient in glass and stoneware bottle making until the turn of the 20th century. Prior to that, many bottles had to be shipped to Australia.

Early immigrants to Australia started food and beverage businesses. It required them to manufacture containers for their product. Many thousands of unique bottles were created and marked to identify their manufacturer.

G.Hall & Sons

George Hall immigrated to South Australia from England and founded a soft drink manufacturing business in Marryatville in 1849, better known as Halls. Halls produced a wide range of soft drinks, cordials and specialised in “stonie” ginger beer. They moved from Marrayatville to a larger premises on the Norwood Parade in 1872. By 1970, Hall & Sons were producing 30,000 bottles per hour.

D. & J. Fowler Ltd

Fowlers was a wholesale grocery company founded in Adelaide by David and James Fowler. Starting out as a retail outlet on King William Street they expanded to a wholesale business with many varied interests. The company became one of Australia’s largest wholesale grocers with investments in diverse areas such as milling, tea and bottling. In 1992 Fowler’s North Terrace factory and surrounds were converted into an arts precinct, now known as the Lion Arts Centre.

F. H. Faulding & Co

Francis Hardey Faulding immigrated to Australia in 1842 and set up a successful pharmacy on Rundle Street, Adelaide. He entered into a partnership with Luther Scammell and the company expanded and diversified into manufacturing and wholesaling. The Faulding company developed the process for distillation of eucalyptus oil which formed the basis of an antiseptic. The antiseptic was then used for their own soap and disinfecting products. Other well-known products were milk emulsion, cordials, flavour extracts, and perfumery essential oils.

BOBO Cordial

Bobo Cordial was made by Anchor brand and sold only in South Australia. Bobo the Clown, played by Hal Turner, started out on Channel 9 and developed a massive following on the children’s programmes. In 1965 Hal moved over to Channel 10. This was when Adelaide produced it’s own TV personalities, and they were often asked to lend their names to products like this one. BOBO cordial extract was so concentrated that it could make up 70 glasses of cordial.

AMSCOL

In 1918, Walter Beauchamp joined forces with local dairy farmer John Lawrie of Lewiston to encourage local milk producers to join a cooperative to supply Adelaide with fresh milk. 94% of the South Australian dairy farmers joined the cooperative and formed the Adelaide Milk Supply Cooperative Limited (AMSCOL) in 1922. AMSCOL produced bottled milk, ice cream, cream, cheese and butter and also supplied the milk when the Government introduced the ‘milk for school children’ programme back in the 1950s.

A. Walton & Co.

Alfred Walton started a manufacturing and retail confectionery business in Rundle St, Adelaide, in 1876. He later took over premises formerly used as Calder’s biscuit factory in Twin St. Around 1904, Alfred and son John Walton moved to large newly built premises in Grote St, Adelaide. They then merged with Fowler’s Lion Confectionery Works and operated as A. Walton & Co, Ltd. The business successfully operated until the early 1950s.

Adelaide Bottle Co-operative Company

The Adelaide Bottle Co-operative Society was formed in 1897 by a number of brewers, producers and aerated water manufacturers who grouped together for better buying power of new and secondhand bottles. In 1908 the society registered the Pickaxe trademark. Trademarking bottles was an easy way to identify the bottle owner and it was a sure way to prevent other factories refilling it.

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March 30, 2017

Urban Exploring: Gerard & Goodman / Clipsal

Mr. Alfred Gerard of Clipsal/Gerard & Goodman. — Mr. Alfred Gerard. (Photo courtesy Schneider Electric Australia)

Alfred Gerard married Elise Goodman in Adelaide in 1902 and in 1907, with a loan of £100 from his father-in-law, started a merchandising and contracting business at 204 Rundle Street Adelaide. He called the business Gerard & Goodman.

Gerard & Goodman Building Adelaide. — Left: Gerard & Goodman Building, Synagogue Place, Adelaide, c1928.
Right: Gerard & Goodman Building, Rundle Street frontage c1969. (Both images courtesy State Library of South Australia)

Prior to 1920, all available electrical conduits used in Australia were imported from overseas. The various fittings came in different diameters making it difficult for Australian electricians to join each section. Gerard seized the opportunity and created a fitting that was easier to use and offered it at a lower price than the expensive imports.

Clipsal "Clips All" product c1920. — Top: The “Clips-All” product designed by Alfred Gerard.
Bottom: Employees manufacturing the “Clips-All” product designed by Mr. Gerard.

Gerard & Goodman began production of the ‘clips all’ product in 1920 in Rundle Street, Adelaide with just six employees. The demand for the product outstripped supply. Needing to manufacture more of the ‘clips all’ product and others, Gerard built a multi-building facility at Park Terrace Bowden.

Gerard Electric Mfrs Ltd, Park Terrace, Bowden. (Photo courtesy Schneider Electric Australia)

The “Clipsal” name was created from the product’s unique ability to “clips all sizes”. This was abbreviated to Clipsal – and the iconic South Australian brand was born. The company went on to deliver several other manufacturing breakthroughs, including the first all-Australian switch in 1930 and pioneered the use of thermoplastics in the 1950s. During the Second World War, Clipsal switched to full capacity for the Australian Defence Department, manufacturing aircraft switches, bomb release buttons and morse code keys.

Images of the Clipsal Museum inside Schnieder Electric Adelaide

Memorabilia of Clipsal and Gerard’s “Clips All” product can be seen inside Schnieder Electrics’ Adelaide headquarters. The museum boasts old catalogues of Clipsal’s products as well as original guides for electricians/installers.

The Gerard and Goodman building was earmarked for heritage protection, however in 2013 Planning Minister John Rau removed it from the list. Along with The Rhino Room, The Howling Owl, Urban Cow Studio, Eckersley’s Art & Craft and the Wilson Frome St Car Park, it is to be demolished over the coming months. In its place, a 34-storey hotel and apartment complex and an adjacent 21-storey student accommodation building.

We’re unsure how long the Gerard & Goodman building has sat abandoned and unused, but before it’s ultimate demise, let us take you through the original building where Clipsal first began:

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February 11, 2017

Urban Exploring: Port Augusta Northern Power Station

The 'Northern' Port Augusta Coal-Powered Power Station. — The ‘Northern’ Port Augusta Coal-Powered Power Station. (Photo courtesy Alinta Energy)

The Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) started construction of the Northern Power Station (located 275km North of Adelaide) in 1980 and took 5 years to complete. It was officially opened by the Premier of South Australia, John Bannon, on the 17th of October 1985. The station was built on reclaimed land; on top of nearly half a million cubic meters of ash spoil from the nearby Playford Power Station. Supplied by coal from Leigh Creek and cooled by sea water from Spencer Gulf, for 31 years it produced the cheapest electricity in the State.

After ETSA was privatised in 1999, the Port Augusta Power Stations changed hands several times. They became owned by Alinta Energy in 2007 when Alinta acquired it from former owners, Babcock & Brown Power.

The Process – simplified

Each week, six trains with 160 wagons would deliver more than 57,000 tonnes of coal to the power station. As coal was needed, it moved via conveyor belt to bunkers at the top of the boilers, then ground down to a fine dust and burnt. Two boilers, each 80 metres high and containing 24 huge burners would consume 170 tonnes of coal per hour — heating water inside to a temperature of 1050°C. Water pumped through tubes inside the walls of the boilers turned into steam which was then forced into the turbines under high pressure causing them to spin at 3,000rpm. Each of the sites two generators produced 260 megawatts of electricity at 18,000 volts, which was then transformed to 275,000 volts for transmission across all of South Australia.

Closure

The closure of the Leigh Creek Coal Mine and the Northern and Playford B Stations resulted in over 470 job losses. The Leigh Creek Coal Mine ceased operations on 17 November 2015. The last generator at the Northern Power Station was shut down at 9.40am on Monday 9th of May 2016.

It has been described as the “end of an era” for Port Augusta and South Australia for coal-fired electricity generation. Starting with the Playford A station in 1956, the mining and power operations employed thousands of local people over the last 60 years.

Historical Staff Pictures

Over the years, staff of the Port Augusta Power Station passionately preserved photographs of their worksite. Here are a few select images from their wonderful archive:

Over the last year, we visited the Northern Power Station multiple times. It’s now under the operation of demolition contractors with decommissioning works expected to take two years. The chimney is expected to be felled by mid-2017. The images here are 6-12 months old and present a record of the Station at that time.