A truck driver making a delivery to Hume Precast in Viveash this week noticed something odd: a big patch of ground where buildings had been pulled down, leaving only concrete foundations and old rails. What used to be there? Locals were quick to guess brickworks, and the history of this corner of the Swan Valley suggests they are probably on the right track.
We haven't been able to confirm exactly which buildings stood on that particular site. But the story of the area is all about bricks.
A suburb built by a brick company
Viveash, on the north-eastern edge of Midland in the City of Swan, takes its name from Samuel Waterman Viveash, who owned land in the area in the 1840s. The suburb itself was developed by Midland Brick, which subdivided the land in 1967 and asked in 1968 for it to be named after him.
Midland Brick began in 1946, when brothers Charles and Gerry New set up a brickyard in neighbouring Middle Swan with £200 borrowed from their mother, at a time when Perth was desperately short of building materials after World War II. Charles reportedly experimented with Darling Range clay in his oven at home.
Photo: Sam Wilson via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Midland Brick's Middle Swan works.
Once the world's biggest brickworks on one site
There was already a brickmaker nearby. Lewis Whiteman ran the Middle Swan Brickworks, later known as Whitemans Brick, which his son Lew took over in 1941. Lew, whose name lives on in Whiteman Park, sold the business in 1966, and it was later bought by Midland Brick.
According to the company's recorded history, the 1985 purchase of Whitemans brought nine more kilns and made Midland Brick the largest brick producer on a single site in the world, a title recognised by the Guinness Book of Records. By 1989 it employed 850 people and made nearly a million bricks a day, about 80 per cent of the WA market. Boral bought the company in 1990.
What locals think was there
People who know the area offered a few theories. Most pointed to Midland Brick, with one saying part of the site was a Midland Brick kiln. Another suggested the old Midland Railway Workshops, though those sit further south in Midland itself. The rails the driver spotted could fit either a brickworks, where kiln cars ran on tracks, or an industrial siding.
"Part of it is a Midland Brick kiln but there's rails and stuff in the old building foundations." - Perth local
If you worked on the site or know what stood there, we'd love to hear from you.
Photo: Calistemon via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). File photo of the Ascot Kilns in Maylands, another piece of Perth's brickmaking history.
Sources: Wikipedia entries on Viveash, Midland Brick and Lew Whiteman; comments from Perth locals.
Main photo: Brick stacks at Midland Brick's Middle Swan works, by Sam Wilson via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). File photo.
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