Refinery Square

Date Built: 1906

Centre of CSR operations. Administration office built 1906.

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Refinery Square

Overview

Large fig tree in Refinery Square Refinery Square and distillery from Tablet House Refinery Square in 2012 Leone Huntsman with retired CSR engineers who saved the weathercock Fleet of Morris-Commercial Leader 5-ton lorries for sugar cartage, 1939 Flatbed of McCaffery Services Pty Ltd, laden with bagged sugar, departs refinery, circa 1960 Horse teams in Refinery Square, circa 1930s Looking north-east over the refinery, circa 1904 Lewis Morley, Self-portrait in front of clocking-in office, from CSR Pyrmont Refinery Centenary 1978 Photography Project.

Refinery Square was the nerve centre of CSR operations from 1906 when the Administration Office was built here. Horse-drawn drays (later trucks) entered and left the complex here, and cargo was weighed.
The Administration building housed offices and the carpenters’ workshop. Here workers lined up to receive their wages at the paymaster’s window. A large fig tree shaded an open area north of the building.
Lend Lease chose to retain Refinery Square as the heart of the Jacksons Landing residential complex, the site of shared community services and the location of many historical allusions and references.
The Square has been enlarged and landscaped as a park, and the Station – once the entrance to CSR’s Administration Offices – serves as Jacksons Landing’s meeting room and community hall. The gatehouse has been refurbished as offices for the Resident Services Manager and security staff. Recycled sandstone is used wherever possible, and the site history is evoked in quotations etched in metal and in glass and corten steel blades.