By Rodney Hammett, Bulletin 1/2024, March

View of Sydney Lead Works and shot tower from Wentworth Park Road, 1906 (Source: Australian Town and Country Journal, 7 Nov 1906, p. 33, Trove)

During my trawling through the many photos of Glebe and Forest Lodge available online at the City of Sydney, State Library of NSW and National Library websites, I’ve come across many that have piqued my interest, none more so than a structure that imposed on the Glebe skyline for over 40 years. A new industrial enterprise, the Sydney Lead Works, opened in 1893, and, in 1902 the shot tower was built. Some may have seen this new enterprise as a reflection of the manly endeavours of an awakening nation.

The shot tower once stood proudly on the site of the current 82 Wentworth Park Road – a site that, even now, is gaining notoriety for other reasons – as it awaits its possible demolition. 

While the lead works were moved in 1930 to a new factory in Waterloo, the Wentworth Park Road site was used for related activities until a disastrous fire in 1937. The shot tower was probably demolished in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Timber wharves, Blackwattle Bay, 1910. The shot tower can be seen on the skyline beyond. (Source: Harold Cazneaux collection, Australian National Maritime Museum
View from the shot tower of Lyndhurst (centre) and surrounding houses in about 1940. Sydney University can be seen on the horizon. The shot tower’s shadow is in the left foreground. (Source: State Library of NSW; Ref FL381282)

Lyn Collingwood wrote eloquently of the shot tower’s history as part of the Sydney Lead Works in Bulletin 06/2010, p. 8. These photos can now be added to that history.