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Former Yarraville Woollen Mills

Other Names Melbourne Pottery Company ,  Morlynn Ceramics Pty Ltd ,  Australian Porcelain Insulator Company Location 2 Banool Avenue,, YARRAVILLE VIC 3013 - Property No B6269 File Number B6269 Level National

Statement of Significance

The Melbourne Woollen Mills/Morlynn Insulators site is significant as a rare and substantially intact example of mid nineteenth century industrial building specifically adapted to the needs of a woollen mill.
The building is historically significant as one of the earliest woollen mills in Australia, the first woollen mill in Melbourne and for its association with the prominent mill builders and managers Edwin and Walter Gaunt. It is also important as an early example of recycling of an industrial building for other uses, in this case, its conversion to a pottery in 1889, and as a major manufacturer of porcelain insulators in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The building is architecturally signficant for the use of ashlar bluestone masonry featuring prominent string courses and pilasters and arched openings with quoin-work of projecting, drafted-edge bluestone blocks and decorated keystones. The bulding may also be the earliest surviving example of the sawtooth roof form in Victoria.
Classified: 20/11/1991