Something that I continue to be in awe of is the amount of seriously large and/or heavy machinery that was transported from its place of manufacture to the middle of nowhere (and perhaps more so in the mid to late 1800s).
In this case it’s a cast iron something-or-other manufactured by Thomas Broadbent and Sons and transported several thousand miles from the north of England to the Australian Outback.
It was with a small amount of surprise that I found that this company is still in existence. Among other things they manufacture laundry equipment and centrifuges. The object in the photograph was sitting near the old wool scouring sheds at Mount Wood in Sturt National Park near Tibooburra. The object looks similar to the centrifugal driers in the top left of the Thomas Broadbent web page that were exhibited in Melbourne in 1889. So, for the time being at least, I’ll assume that that’s what it was.
Related posts:
- Outback 2009: Short-lived boat An old car body rests in a creek bed in...
- Outback 2009: The land from Mt. Poole Flat. Dry. Brown. Vast. A view from Mt. Poole near...
- Woolpack rocks Woolpack Rocks is one of the two high-level viewpoints in...
- Outback 2009: Tibooburra We’ve made it as far as the north-west corner of...
- Farm sheds Several sheds and out-buildings sit across the paddocks. The sun...
Yes… the machinery of the Victorian age was amazing. Big, heavy, strong…all serious metals, and often quite beautiful to see.
And built to last unlike today’s stuff with built in obsolescence!!