In recent months, our conservation reports team has been providing advice on heritage issues associated with two sites linked to wartime aviation in the state of Victoria.

The first site (left hand photo) was established during WWII — the former Werribee Satellite Aerodrome, now owned by Melbourne Water. Here, two large aircraft hangars dating from 1942 remain. They are distinguished by their unusual structural design, which used green timber members with bolted fixing plates in the roof trusses. Originally clad in corrugated asbestos cement sheeting, they now pose a major conservation problem as a result of roof truss failure.

For the second project, we undertook the assessment of a number of prefabricated WWII hangars at Fishermans Bend (right hand photo). They were constructed in the early 1940s as part of the development of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation's aeronautical manufacturing complex. One, a Butler hangar, was manufactured in the US and the other three, Bellman hangars, were built in Australia to a British design. The Butler hangar has recently been added to the Victorian Heritage Register.

A typological study of Australian and international aircraft hangar forms was undertaken by staff member Dr Conrad Hamann. This was invaluable to our work on both projects.   [ photos: Peter Lovell ]

The conservation works and reports team has been busy in other areas too. It just completed a recording strategy and interpretation plan for the former oil wharves on the Yarra River at Newport for the Port of Melbourne Corporation.

The Newport complex, constructed between 1914 and 1922, comprised over 120m of timber-pile training wall and a series of timber wharves and berths for tankers that offloaded oil for the British Imperial Oil Co. (a subsidiary of the Shell Co.) and later, BP and Caltex, among others. Fuel lines led from the wharves to the oil holding tanks, still in use today, across Douglas Parade.

The wharves are long gone now and much of the training wall is to be replaced with rock beaching. To fulfill a condition of the consent granted by Heritage Victoria for the replacement works, we have surveyed the walls, prepared measured drawings of them and written an interpretation plan.

Twenty metres of wall will be retained and restored. When the beaching works are complete, interpretative signage designed by Challis Design will be installed by the foreshore walking/cycle track.   [ photo: Peter Lovell ]

Peter Lovell and Anita Brady both presented papers at the Australia ICOMOS National Conference 2006 in early November. The conference theme was: Challenge and Change in Ports, Their Towns and Cities.

Peter Lovell has provided heritage advice to the Melbourne Docklands Authority (now VicUrban) for the past decade. His conference paper is entitled Melbourne Docklands: Workaday yet Relentlessly Romantic. It looks at the transformed nature of Melbourne's Dockland redevelopment, which is recognised nationally and internationally as an extraordinary urban design achievement but has struggled with its heritage legacy.

Anita Brady was one of several team members involved in the Melbourne Docklands interpretation strategy — Docklands Reflections: Living History — prepared by Lovell Chen in 2002.

At the conference, she presented her paper Melbourne Docklands: The Challenge of Interpretation, which describes the strategy development process and what the outcomes have been to date. She reflects on the opportunities for interpretation at the transformed Docklands, the role of the Urban Art Program in the interpretation, and the need to pursue further opportunities in this area as more development comes on line.