Re-tolling the Bells – Preservation of an Historic Bell Tower

The Eveleigh Railway Workshops were the major locus of construction of steam locomotives in New South Wales, Australia, and the largest railway workshops in the Southern Hemisphere in their heyday. The site, located in the inner-city suburb of Redfern in Sydney, operated from 1888–1988 and was then adapted into the Australian Technology Park (ATP), a commercial business park focused on innovative technology and research. A considerable amount of the preservation work on the site was, however, only half-done at the time of adaptation, and Extent Heritage spent much of the last ten years assisting the ATP management with backlog maintenance and preservation projects. One major incomplete project was the preservation of the bell tower on the former Works Managers’ Office. A late 19th century rendered masonry building with later extensions, it is surmounted by a cast iron belfry with a bell that originally sounded the beginning and end of the work day at the site. Failure within the tower was causing major impacts within the building itself. Extent directed the project to conserve the bell tower and belfry, which required sympathetic modifications to the structure to address the practical conservation issues and manage the requirements for future maintenance and access. This paper will explore the issues uncovered and the techniques used to conserve the belfry and bell tower, and the decisions made to facilitate ease of future maintenance.