Peanut Butter Christmas

The former ETA Peanut Butter factory in Ballarat Braybrook is pretty much gone now. Once a shining modernist coloured glass box, designed by Frederick Romberg, and some of the framing is stacked.

It was apparently the only Australian design included in the 1962 publication Industriebau, a seminal international text on industrial design, published by the German Institute for Industry.

My recollection, however, is from the santa show done on the top of the awning - a sort of animated illuminated diorama.


Original Wolfgan Sievers image is here: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictures/0/0/3/im/pi003728.jpg

Image of christmas at ETA by Gary Ayton at http://www.ayton.id.au/gary/genealogy/images/196212_EtaFactory_Xmas.jpg

Melbourne University Archive objects

Here are a couple of odd objects. They come from the University of Melbourne Archives, possibly collected in the 1970s-80s by Frank Strahan, possibly from Melbourne University engineering, chemistry, geology or other department, or from a business that also donated company papers. Unfortunately there are no accession details to go with them.

The first is described as "Rock Over Gauge" and is about 1.5m long with a timber box containing several timber rods.

The other is a group of metal rods, some with turned ends, and two metal rings with wires attached (welded or soldered) I am trying to find out what the writing on a couple is.

The Blowups

The former Australian Lithofracteur/Australian Explosives & Chemical Co/Nobel/ICI/ICIANZ/Orica explosives factory in Deer Park in Melbourne's west is closing, and decontamination of the site is underway. this will involve demolition, burning, controlled explosions, excavation of soil, and burial of debris.

There won't be much scope of preserving heritage on the site. Most of the buildings are supposed to be contaminated, along with the ground around them. The factory was one of the most dangerous workplaces in Australia, known locally as "the Blowups", where at least 19 people (including several young women) were killed in accidents (mostly explosions) between about 1878 and 1939.

William Williams London clay pipe

Thanks to Clay Pipe Peter (Peter Hammond) I have discovered my clay tobacco pipe fragment "is a very unusual pipe", made by London pipemaker William Williams of Kent Street, Southwark, "an export pipe manufacturer whose pipes have been found in a number of places in the USA etc, normally marked in relief along the stem." Williams was also a founder member of the Bristol guild of pipe makers in 1652. It had 25 members, some of whom were apprentices, and four were women.

It is apparently one that Peter had not seen before. It is especially different with the twisted design on the stem, copying Dutch style pipes of the period, and seems to have had a very narrow bowl - again unusual. I would date it to 1840s rather than later.

thanks due to Smoke Pfeiffer and Peter Hammond, Membership Secretary/Treasurer of the Society for Clay Pipe Research.

Oldest House continued

The other side of the Williams of London pipe, (upside down sorry) , letters "O N" visible. The others probably worn off or picked off by the smoker.

Oldest House in Melbourne - Was?

A brief rescue? excavation on the site of the supposed oldest house in Melbourne. located in Williamstown, and removed rather than demolished.

A couple of small test excavations (sondages if you like the French method) found occupation debris such as discarded butchered bone, glass, ceramic and domestic effects, which are likely to be from a sealed deposit dating from about 1843 to the mid 1860s. An 1861 halfpenny (part of a 'hoard' of four pence ha'penny - net profit?) was uncovered under a 10-20cm think packed clay layer, the surface of which was smooth and pressed firm suggesting a former floor level before the timber floor went in.

Whitewash marks on the stone hearth and plinth stones under the wall plates also point to an earth floor. So was the house lived in for 20 years with a dirt floor? seemingly. Other evidence recorded by Willys Keeble as the house was dismantled also suggests that it started life as a timber framed canvas covered dwelling, and was progressively lined, first outside, then inside.


I also found my first intact decorated clay tobacco pipe stem - marked “Williams” on one side of the stem and “London” on the other, and with a raised line and dot decoration. Still haven't managed to find it in a catalogue, makers list, but hope to eventually.

A small test excavation near the front door revealed a number of other coins and small objects, beads, slate pencils, glass and pottery fragments. these may have fallen though the verandah floorboards. I imagine Mr Pope coming home in the dark and rummaging for his keys, then dropping a few coins. Or some of the several children playing on the verandah.

The house has now been dismantled and packed into crates by Yarraville resident Simon Raynor, hopefully for future re-erection and restoration.

Cambarville

This mostly abandoned settlement on the Dividing Range beyond Marysville, was burn through by the 2009 fires. Once a thriving sawmill settlement, it is now reduced to a single occupied house, Parks Victoria works compound, a picnic area and a variety of relics lost in the bush. Clearing up has resulted in a periphery of dumps, some with building material, twisted roofing iron and the like, other discrete collection of equipment - parts of a gold stamping battery - most of Jacques jaw crusher, elevator and screens from an old CRB rock crushing plant, various bottle dumps and the like. The diesel engine is all the stands out from the post WWII sawmill. There are widely scattered are fragments of crockery and glass, and a surprising number of artefacts from children - a plastic tea cup handle, lead farm animal, a dolls leg and Guides pin. The 'cleaning up' has made the site look tidy, but makes the archaeology a disappointment.