Refinery Square took shape between Bowman Street and the Tablet House (completed in 1909). CSR’s Administration Office was built there in 1906, on Bowman Street next to the gated entrance to the refinery complex.
Horse-drawn drays (and later, trucks) entered the gate here, and weighed their cargo at the weigh-station, under the eye of gatekeepers in the little guard house.
The Administration building was much bigger then than now, and accommodated offices and the carpenters’ workshop (handily close to the Cooperage). Here too, the paymaster dealt with the world through a slate-silled window at the northern end ­ several hundred workers lined up here to receive their pay. A large fig tree shaded the small open area north of the building.
At the top of the refinery itself perched a weathercock. It was made by coppersmiths (C. Marsden and G. Orpwood) to celebrate the 1900 relief of Mafeking during the Boer War. It served until the refinery was demolished, when resourceful engineers rescued it and put it to work in their bowling club.