Nicholas Bray Landscapes
This is the factory that just keeps giviing!
In 2004, Peter Campbell and Murray Fredericks spent six months documenting the closure of the Westons Biscuit Factory. This essay has been celebrated in books, magazines and, in 2007, a major exhibition at the Museum of Sydney,
In 2016, landscape designer, Nicholas Bray, was engaged to design a small heritage-driven courtyard on the site of the Westons Ryvita factory in Sydney's Camperdown. The brief called for a major installation telling the story of the Weston's site from pre-contact times, but featuring its mid-twentieth century history as a biscuit factory. The primary source for imagery from this time is Peter's document.
Nicholas Bray Landscapes designed the spaces and the 'Wagon Wheel' sculptural installation. Peter designed the interpretive graphics using historic imagery and his own shots of the Ryvita factory from 2004. Some of these are included here.
The brief story is that the site was home to three different biscuit factories, all of them beloved by Australians for their fine products. It was also the site of a pottery kiln, a horse sales yard, and a kangaroo hunting ground for the earliest settlers. The land was once owned by William Bligh (of ‘The Bounty’ fame) who became Governor of NSW.
It is also one of the oldest residential areas of Sydney, located on the road to Parramatta, the other main European settlement in NSW in the late nineteenth century.
My thanks to Murray Fredericks for the use of his fabulous shots of the redeveloped Ryvita site in 2017.. my black and white rooftops shot is how this area looked in 2004!
COLLABORATORS
Landscape Design: Nicholas Bray
History Editor: Nicholas Rheinberger
Graphic Design: Peter Campbell
Westons Photography: © Peter Campbell
Current Site Photography: © Murray Fredericks and @ Stephen Foster