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Former Newport Workshops

Location 2-78 Champion Road,, NEWPORT VIC 3015 - Property No B4019 File Number B4019 Level State

[1/1] B4019 Newport Workshops

Statement of Significance

Built in 1884-88 at the height of the long boom, the Newport Railway Workshops were the largest industrial concern in the colony of Victoria, then the industrial centre of Australia.
They are one of only two operating nineteenth-century work-shops in Australia retaining original structures and equipment on a large scale.
The magnitude and variety of industrial processes, trade skills practised at this site and the extensive collection of working machinery qualifies the Newport Railway Workshops to be of prime national importance.
The workshops are two single storey brick arcaded buildings with gables decorated by bichrome work and lunettes set within the gables to echo the gable form while the sides of these blocks are scarcely less impressive ranges of repeated segmental arch windows. The east block was devoted to the repair and manufacture of wooden passenger carriages and goods wagons, while the west block provided for iron and steel units; locomotives, boilers and goods wagons.
These blocks flanked a two storey office and clock tower which was distinguished by stucco dressings instead of the red brick of the blocks. The whole complex is on a vast scale and although the main views are still discernible their usual impact has been somewhat diminished by the clutter of more recent years.
The bulk of the buildings behind the main facades were corrugated iron and were notable for their size, early use of saw tooth roof construction and the range of activities undertaken. This diversity of occupations in one huge workplace was an important impetus in the transformation of craft unions to mass industrial unions.
Built at the time of extensive railway expansion the Newport Workshops are a symbol of the importance of railways as an employer in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The site also contains historically significant pieces of machinery, including a 1960 steam hammer and a rope-driven crane of the late 1880's.
Classified:23/11/1987