For those who never visited the Yarloop Workshops and the remainder of the Yarloop Heritage Precinct and for those who never knew it well, I plan to provide an informative tour starting with the Workshop site.
This first article begins with buildings that even the most elderly of us never saw and the first of these is the original Millars’ Yarloop Mill.
This first mill was a small mill, built near what is now the new house next to the Shire Shed and the Fire Station, near the site of the old Boarding house on Railway Parade. This type of mill is often called a ‘spot mill’ and it was probably built to supply timber for the new buildings by cutting up the cleared trees for the townsite. It may have also cut some of the wooden blocks used for road building for which Millars’ had acquired a large overseas contract. Such a mill, however, would have had trouble cutting up the large mainly Jarrah trees that covered the area. The power and the blades required to deal with these trees would not have been available in such a mill. Some of our very senior citizens can recall such trees left standing in the area. This mill only operated for a few years, from 1894 to 1896, and the site became part of the Workshops site.
The Second Mill was built in 1895 to the north of the Workshops site and its location is marked by concrete footings for either a large saw or a machine such as a winch or a steam engine. It operated until 1901. By then the Waterous Mill had commenced operation. Thanks to Samuel Baker whose photographs were passed on by Geoff Fortune, we have a photograph of this Second Mill.
The Yarloop Second Mill, photo taken by Samuel Baker.
Another building that has long since disappeared was the new Administration Building. The original administration office was in the south end of the Main Store. This building remained until the 2016 Fire but as the Workshops grew, the administration was moved to a new ‘luxurious’ Administration Building shown in another of Baker’s photographs. I don’t know when it disappeared but I suspect the management moved to the mill-site on the South Western Highway. This Yarloop mill became the Millars’ Mill after other mills in the area were destroyed by the 1966 Dwellingup Fire. The old documents and ledgers that we now possess were stored at the Mill before they were, more recently, returned to the Vault.
The Administration Building, photo by Samuel Baker.
The final unseen building that I’m aware of sat in the area between the Blacksmith’s Shop, the Main Workshop and the Truck Shop that was east of the Main Building. The Wheelwright’s Shop consisted of a section for wooden wheels and a section for metal wheels and stood until or soon before, I believe, Bunnings closed down the Workshops. A large quenching pit that was used to fix steel tyres onto wheels as large as those on timber whims, remained until the clean-up following the 2016 Fire.
Timber Whim
An even large wheel-lathe (see below), believed to be one of only two in Australia, survived the Fire and the subsequent clean-up. This was used to balance wheels such as the large wheels on locomotives. The point where the drive shaft for the Wheelwright’s Shop came out from the Main Workshop could still be seen (top right-hand corner of the photograph below). Plans for the rebuilding of the Wheelwright’s Shop were drawn up but never implemented.
A large wheel lathe
There are other Workshop buildings that were unseen by the present generation but several were replaced by replicas. The stories of these will be given as we tour through the site.
Allan Ward, Hon. Curator, Yarloop Workshops Inc.
[Note: I credit some of this information to Geoff Fortune’s writings including his book, ‘The Milling Industry’, and the photographs used in that book to Samuel Baker.][1]
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[1] From ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’, Part 27.