Robb's Jetty Chimney Stack

The Robb’s Jetty Chimney Stack in North Coogee is one of the last visible reminders of Western Australia’s once-booming meat export industry. Rising from the site where the Fremantle Freezing Meat Works once stood, this lone brick tower tells the story of an era when the State’s livestock industry was being reshaped for global trade.

 

A Tower of Steam and Industry

The chimney stack was built as part of the boiler house for the Fremantle Freezing Works (also known as the West Australian Meat Export Works), established in the early 1920s. The boilers supplied steam that powered machinery, drove the refrigeration compressors and heated water used for cleaning and sterilisation. In short, without the chimney and its boilers, the entire operation could not have run.

 

The works processed enormous volumes of cattle and sheep from across the state, much of it destined for overseas markets. Beyond meat, by-products such as hides, tallow and wool also passed through the facility, feeding other industries. The chimney, belching smoke from burning coal, became an unmistakable sign of the industrial activity that sustained WA’s growing economy.

 

The Abattoir and Its Importance

The Fremantle Freezing Works opened at a time when small private slaughterhouses around Perth were being shut down due to poor hygiene and health risks. The new government-regulated abattoir at Robb’s Jetty represented a turning point, introducing modern standards and giving WA the ability to freeze and ship meat to Europe without it spoiling.

 

The abattoir complex was massive, with its own rail sidings, stockyards and a jetty that once extended far into Owen Anchorage. Ships delivered livestock and took away frozen carcasses, while the chimney stack stood tall over it all.

 

Surviving the Wrecking Ball

When the abattoir finally closed in the early 1990s (most sources say 1994), the entire site was demolished, except for the chimney. Recognised for its heritage significance, the stack was spared and restored in 1996 with $50,000 in funding from Landcorp. It now stands as a protected heritage structure, rising 38 metres into the sky, its weathered red bricks recalling almost a century of industrial history.

 

Today, the chimney is all that remains of what was once a sprawling abattoir precinct that employed hundreds of workers and supported thousands of farmers across Western Australia.