"The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do."
Sir William Deane, Governor-General of Australia, Inaugural Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture, August 1996.

Major Workshops - North Altona

Barry Marsden (bio)

In 1947 the FCV purchased an area of land at North Altona from Brooklyn Quarries Pty Ltd. (Map here) In this article the site is referred to as North Altona, although the facilities and functions delivered on the site have changed dramatically since 1947.

The original allotment has been reduced by the granting of an easement to the former State Electricity Commission, the leasing of land to the local Italian community for the building of an Italian Social Club, and by the sale of a parcel of land on the southern boundary.

The current site is located in Kyle Road, North Altona – (Same map as earlier) In 2019 the area of the property was 2.31ha.

The land on the eastern side of Kyle Road, which is no longer part of the North Altona site, was originally used for the purpose of a FCV firewood storage depot and workshop. It was called the Brookwood rail-siding, and was one of several firewood storage depots close to and in Melbourne, the others being in Toorak, Fitzroy and Kew. These firewood depots were a part of the FCV's post-WW2  involvement in supplying firewood to meet community needs.

In December 1950 a large fire at this depot destroyed more than 3300 tonnes of firewood.

Wednesday 20th December 1950 (Media report extract )
The Argus Melbourne

The sky over Melbourne was red last night from fires through out the metropolitan area. The main outbreak was at Brookwood where a Forests Commission Fire wood depot was practically destroyed.

No estimate could be obtained of the damage last night but it is expected to run into tens of thousands of pounds. The fire will also seriously hit Melbourne’s winter firewood supplies, a shortage of which has already been forecast.