The Royal Edward Victualling Yard (REVY) is a heritage-listed former naval victualling yard and warehouses, in the inner city Sydney suburb of Pyrmont in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Walter Liberty Vernon (Buildings A and B and C) and built from 1904 to 1912 by McLeod Brothers (Buildings A, B) and NSW Public Works Department (Bdg C). The buildings are also known as Buildings A & B: REVY Main Warehouse, Naval Warehouse and Royal Edward Victualling Yard, Building C: Former Commonwealth Ordnance Stores. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 March 2011.
Formerly used as the headquarters of the Seven Network, REVY buildings A and B, at 38-42 Pirrama Road, were purchased by Google in 2018. The REVY C building, at 8 Darling Island Road, has been converted to luxury apartments.
History
Indigenous history The Royal Edward Victualling Yard is located on land originally inhabited by the Cadigal people. Their land south of Port Jackson stretched from South Head to Petersham. The coastal Aborigines around Sydney became known to Europeans as the "Eora people". The word Eora means "here" or "from this place". Local Aboriginal people used the word to describe to the British where they came from and so the word was then used to define the Aboriginal people themselves. The people used the harbour for food using fishing line made from the inner bark of the kurrajong and hibiscus trees and multi-pronged spears tipped with bone. The many varieties of fish and shellfish – oysters, mussels, and cockles – were supplemented with vegetables, grubs, birds, possums, wombats and kangaroos. With fish available all year round, there was no need to leave the coast for food. Although the population decreased significantly due to smallpox, the expansion of settlement and several other factors, there is evidence of Aborigines continuing to frequent Pyrmont with its fresh springs up to the 1870s, and even later there are references to ceremonial gatherings at Ultimo.City of Sydney (2002).
Colonial history The Royal Edward Victualling Yard (REVY) is located on Darling Island, formerly known as Cockle Island. It was originally a rocky knoll attached to the mainland by tidal mud flats. Development started in the Darling Harbour area in the 1810s when Governor Macquarie moved the colony's produce markets to the corner of George and Market Streets, Sydney. This brought with it the need to develop wharves nearby for transportation of goods. As a result, the growth of maritime trade in the area was extensive and included warehouses, stores and other trade buildings. By 1839 Edward Macarthur owned the entire Pyrmont area and subdivided a large portion of it along the waterfront. While many cottages developed there, industrialisation also occurred quickly, including iron works, flour mills and tin smelters. Among these were the Pyrmont works on Darling Island of the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company (HRSN).
HRSN Company was formed in 1839 and started operating in 1846. In the same year Quarry master Charles Saunders was contracted to level Darling Island. In 1851 HRSN Company was renamed the Australian Steam Navigation (ASN) Company. It experienced substantial growth, becoming the largest of the New South Wales (NSW) coastal shipping fleets for a number of decades before being absorbed by overseas interests in the 1890s. In the 1850s the company took out a leasehold on the Pyrmont site. Renovations quickly followed.Design 5 Architects, 2007. It was in this same period (1856) that Garden Island was first suggested as a naval base. In 1865 the Colonial Naval Defence Act empowered the states to provide, maintain and operate warships. The following year Garden Island was dedicated as a naval base.Cox, et al., 1991.
During the 1870s larger ships and cargoes caused the development of longer wharves in the north east of Darling Harbour and at Walsh Bay, prompting the ASN Company to establish a new works at Circular Quay in 1879. By 1884 the Darling Harbour works covered 6.5 acres with a deep water frontage of almost half a mile. The site included a retaining wall on the west, north and south sides of the island which extended from the offices and stores to the foot of the patent slip.
Increasing competition saw the ASN Company begin to struggle in the 1880s. They also suffered a number of shipwrecks. These two factors are believed to have led to their takeover by the Queensland Steam Shipping Company in early 1887. The Darling Island works were not part of the takeover and were offered for sale in 1887. The leasehold was purchased by Edmund Compton Batt who developed plans to establish a meat and wool trading centre on the island. These plans did not eventuate due to the refusal of the Railway Commissioners to extend the existing railway network to Darling Island.
The government purchased Darling Island in 1889 for on advice of the Railway Commissioners. Discussions commenced immediately for its use as a trade centre for wool, coal or general cargo. Works on a concrete quay commenced in 1897.Godden Mackay Logan, 1995.
1900 to 1909 The Sydney Harbour Trust was created in 1901 and subsequently took over construction of the concrete wharf. By this time the eastern side of the wharf was being used as a wheat trading area. A long single storey shed running the length of berths 12 to 14 was completed in 1902. In the same year the concrete wharf was completed and the eastern and western sides connected by a timber wharf to the north A shed was built in 1903–04 on the western side of the wharf and another in 1906–07 at the northern end. It was during this period that the existing victualling yards at Garden Island were deemed inadequate for the recently formed Commonwealth Naval Forces. The yards at Garden Island had originally been developed to replace the nineteenth century use of store ships.
Several sites were considered for the victualling yard. After discussions with the NSW Government the then Commander-in Chief of the Navy, Vice Admiral Fanshawe, suggested Darling Harbour. The decision was then made to build on the mainland. The new storage accommodation would have a floor space of together with a receiving and issuing store, officers, cooperage and a workshop. It was noted years later that the buildings were constructed specifically to meet the needs of the victualling service, particularly in regard to natural lighting, ventilation, storage and expeditious and convenient handling of stores.
After some negotiation Walter Liberty Vernon was commissioned to undertake the design of the buildings. Tenders were called for their construction in 1905. It was won by McLeod Bros. The victualling stores were subsequently constructed on the western side of Darling Island from 1905. This original construction included REVY A and B buildings. A one and two storey weatherboard and stucco building was constructed south of where REVY C is now located and was probably an office block. Other buildings included a receiving shed, cooperage and workshop. All these buildings were designed by Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon between 1890 and 1911.
The new stores were completed in late 1906 or early 1907 and represented some of the earliest public works by the new Commonwealth Government. in July 1906 Rear Admiral WH Fawkes, officer in Charge made a request to the Admiralty that the new stores be officially renamed the Royal Edward Victualling Yard. The request was granted in January 1907, ensuring that the stores became the first Royal Yard in the southern hemisphere and the Navy's major store depot. The Victualling Stores were transferred from Garden Island to REVY on 23 February 1907. They officially became the new headquarters of the victualling department of the Imperial Naval Authority on a permanent lease on 1 June 1907. An inventory in 1907 listed the yard as containing Buildings A and B (stores), a cooperage, slades, police guard room, electricians workshop, two garages, kitchen, Officers Dining Room, two floor office block containing a yard pattern room, seamstress room, and carpenters workshop. There were also yard craft accommodated on the waterfront. These included two work boats, a passenger launch and two well lighters.
The Navy would continue to maintain some stores on Garden Island and constructed additional storehouses on Cockatoo Island in 1919. Other storehouses were built at Spectacle Island, although REVY continued to be the main major store depot. Later, like other industries in the area, REVY was reliant on water transport from the nineteenth century. This was not to change for over sixty years. A new entrance from Jones Bay Road was proposed in 1927. Land was leased from the Sydney Harbour Trust Commissioners for the purpose.
In 1907 a contract was agreed upon for pile driving and other preparations for the construction of new buildings on Darling Island. Plans were prepared in 1909 and in 1912 the eight-story ordinance store (REVY C) was completed. Intended to provide storage for the Military and Postal Departments, it bore the insignia of King George V who succeeded the throne in 1910 rather than that of King Edward was borne by the yard generally.
REVY C was not originally part of the REVY Yard. Instead, it was used by a variety of government departments such as the postal department. It was often referred to as the Commonwealth stores. In 1911 the title Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was granted to the Commonwealth Naval Forces. However, naval establishments, including REVY were not transferred to the Commonwealth of Australia until 1913. The cable storage tanks that were used by the Post Master Generals Department to store cables underwater are still in evidence on the ground floor of the building. The cables, designed and fabricated for underwater use, were stored in a cable trench until required.
REVY C was one of the last buildings designed by Vernon as Government Architect and is one of only a few surviving warehouses designed by Vernon. Other surviving buildings include the Bushells warehouse in the Rocks and the REVY A and B warehouses. The construction of REVY C also represented an early provision for fire safety in tall buildings. Early fire fighting services could only reach two storeys and below as steam pumped water pressure could only reach a certain height effectively. As a result, tall buildings needed to provide their own fire fighting equipment and access points. Vernon's consideration for fire safety is evident in REVY C by the external fire escape stairs at each end of the building, a rarity in Sydney at the time.
REVY C's reinforced concrete floors and roofs, and concrete encased steel columns also improved fire resistance. John Sulman and James Nangle were advocating fire resistant building construction in the 1890s. Nangle advocated brick construction as masonry, with as little timber as possible was considered to have superior fire resistance. Reinforced concrete was also a good construction material for fire resistant purposes. Vernon and the government architects office designed some of the earliest reinforced concrete structures in Sydney. The first was constructed in Australia in 1895 and they were common in Melbourne by 1912.
1910 to 1960s The completion of the REVY C building resulted in the creation of a near continuous wall on the western edge of Darling Island formed by Building E (Weatherboard and stucco building), REVY C and the Birt & Co Cargo Shed. REVY C with its length and slenderness made a significant contribution to the wall effect. Together the buildings enclosed the eastern side of Jones Bay that would reopen as the buildings north and south of REVY C were removed. REVY C also became the tallest building on Darling Island.