This week, as Roy continued to go through photos of places he had visited, he came upon another place which had just blown him away, but which he had somehow forgotten to tell you about. Muster Point in Newcastle was a place which he had been wanting to visit for some time, but which somehow, we just hadn’t been able to find on our trips. Then, one day, when just about to give up we saw the sculpture looming between the trees. It is an amazing place!
Muster Point is a huge, 70 tonne sculpture, made of steel and various ‘found objects’. It commemorates an important part of Newcastle's history, the steelworks and the people who worked there, and is located near the entrance to the old BHP steelworks site. If you would like to visit it, it is set back among the trees at the corner of George Street and Selwyn Street off Industrial Drive in Mayfield, Newcastle (NSW). You can enter through the old steelworks gate and park not far from the sculpture, or walk in from the road. Keep your eyes open though because it is difficult to see from the road and when we visited, there was no signpost to point the way to the sculpture.
Newcastle has a long history as a working city and the BHP Steelworks were a major part of this history in the 20th century. In the early 1900s Australia was using more and more steel and in 1911 BHP (Broken Hill Propriety LTD) decided to start manufacturing steel. BHP decided Newcastle would be the perfect place for the steelworks, as there was a good harbour for transporting materials, there was a good workforce and they already owned some land in Mayfield. Construction on the steelworks began in 1913 and in 1915 on June 2 the steelworks opened. Soon the steelworks had received its first shipment of ore, set the blast furnace to working and cast its first steel. Soon after, BHP was asked by the State and Federal Governments to supply huge amounts of steel for the modernisation of the national railway system and the success of the steelworks seemed assured.
BHP was always looking at ways to innovate and continually expanded their operations. By the 1960s they were one of the most ‘modern’ steelworks in the world. By the 1980s though, many of the areas of the site were being closed. The brick works, numerous blast furnaces, the brass foundries and coke ovens were all closed. In 1997 BHP made an agreement with the Australian Construction and Trade Union that the site would be closed and in 1999 the steelworks closed. It was also in 1999 though that the Muster Point sculpture was opened. The sculpture is the size of a small house and used massive quantities of steel in its construction. The skyline of BHP in its working days can be seen in the sculpture and various found objects like boots are incorporated into the sculpture. It is an amazing place to visit and is very evocative of the steelworks which played such a huge role in Newcastle's history. If you would like to learn more about Muster Point, click here.
