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| Photo Credit - realestate.com.au |
Rio Vista, the Carnegie Library, the Grand Hotel, the old Mildura Settlers Club and the early churches have survived from a period when Mildura was still finding its feet as a town.
They are treated as landmarks, and rightly so.
But at the bottom of Etiwanda Avenue is another place from that same era. It did not simply witness Mildura’s growth. It helped provide the materials that made it possible.
The Mildura Brickworks began operating in 1908, the same year the Carnegie Library was built. It was established by businessman Samuel Risbey at a time when Mildura was expanding and builders were concerned about a shortage of bricks.
Suitable clay was available on the river flats, and Risbey already operated a sawmill nearby. Trial bricks were made in June 1908, and by December the works was producing building bricks, tiles and agricultural drainage pipes.
Building and draining the settlement
The drainage pipes were just as important as the bricks.
Irrigation made Mildura possible, but too much water could leave horticultural blocks waterlogged and affected by salinity. The locally made pipes helped move excess water away from fruit-growing properties and into larger drainage schemes.
Before the brickworks began making them, pipes generally had to come from Melbourne. They were expensive to transport and often arrived damaged after repeated rail shunting.
The brickworks helped solve that problem by producing them locally, closer to the farms where they were needed.
One project directly connected to the works was the White Cliffs pumping station at what later became Merbein. In 1909, Risbey’s brickworks supplied 30,000 bricks for its construction.
A heritage study says the works supplied materials for other large projects, although it does not provide a full list of every building that used Mildura bricks.
What we do know is that the brickworks became an important supplier during one of Mildura’s busiest periods of development.
By 1933, four kilns were producing around 160,000 bricks each month, along with large quantities of drainage pipes. Around 16 people worked at the site, supported by delivery staff and timber cutters.
Clay was dug locally, crushed and mixed, formed into shape, cut with wire and left to dry for several weeks before being fired in the kilns.
It was hard, physical work, but those finished bricks and pipes helped build the district and keep its irrigation economy functioning.
The Buffon years
After Samuel Risbey died in 1943, the property was advertised for sale. The brickworks survived major floods in 1952 and 1956, both of which forced it to close temporarily.
In 1958, the Buffon family took over.
Giordano Buffon had arrived in Australia from northern Italy in 1927, and the family had experience with brickworks around the region, including Merbein and Wentworth.
The Buffons operated the Mildura Brickworks for three generations.
At its peak, the works reportedly produced around 1.2 million bricks a year, with average production closer to 700,000.
The business finally closed in 2012 after the supplier of brown coal used in the kilns went out of business.
By then, bricks and pipes had been produced at the site for more than a century.
What remains
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| Photo Credit - realestate.com.au |
The kilns retain their large entrance openings, external fire-feed holes, fuel hoppers and metal reinforcing. Drying sheds, storage buildings, outbuildings and industrial machinery also remain.
That is what makes the Mildura Brickworks so important.
It is not simply one old building. It is a surviving industrial site where people can still understand how the operation worked, from processing the clay to drying and firing the finished bricks.
The 2024 Mildura heritage study described it as relatively intact and considered it a better-preserved example than the former brickworks at Merbein and Wentworth.
It belongs beside our other historic places
Rio Vista tells the story of the Chaffeys and the creation of the irrigation settlement.
Psyche Bend Pumping Station shows the engineering required to bring Murray River water onto the land.
The Grand Hotel reflects the ambition of the early town.
The Carnegie Library represents the growth of education and civic life.
The old Settlers Club tells part of Mildura’s social history.
The Brickworks deserves to be treated with the same respect.
It represents the workers, industries and practical materials that physically shaped the district. It is also part of Mildura’s migrant history through the long connection with the Buffon family.
Industrial places are sometimes overlooked because they were never designed to be grand or decorative.
But once they disappear, the working history they represent is almost impossible to replace.
Still on the market
The former Mildura Brickworks property was placed on the market in 2020 and remains advertised for sale.
The holding covers approximately 22 hectares across several titles, close to the marina and Murray River. That gives it obvious development potential.
It also raises a difficult question for Mildura.
Should the community simply leave the future of the site to the property market and hope that a new owner protects its history?
Or should Mildura take a more active role?
Could it become an attraction?
The kilns, chimneys and surviving sheds could become the centre of a heritage attraction explaining how local clay was transformed into bricks and agricultural pipes.
Historic photographs and machinery could tell the stories of the people who worked there.
Displays could explain how the pipes helped protect early fruit blocks from waterlogging and salinity.
Its position near the marina and riverfront could also allow it to become part of a wider tourism precinct, with walking paths, events, markets, exhibitions or demonstrations of traditional brickmaking.
That does not necessarily mean the entire property must remain untouched.
A sensible development may still be possible while preserving the significant industrial core. The kilns, chimneys, machinery and key sheds could potentially be protected and adapted for public use while other parts of the land are developed.
But that needs to be decided before the site changes hands and before important features are lost.
Nearly 120 years of history
The Mildura Brickworks is now approaching 120 years of history.
For much of that time, it quietly helped build Mildura, support local workers and keep the irrigation district functioning.
It has survived floods, changes in ownership, shifts in industry and the eventual closure of the business itself.
Now its future remains uncertain.
We protect places such as Rio Vista and Psyche Bend because we understand their value.
The Mildura Brickworks should be treated with the same respect.
Nearly 120 years of history is sitting at the bottom of Etiwanda Avenue.
Let’s preserve it.