Engine house and blast furnace of the Eskbank Ironworks Company, Lithgow, New South Wales, circa 1876.

Albumen print photograph, 115 x 185 mm, unmounted; verso with contemporary inscription in pencil ‘Lithgow’; no photographer’s imprint; 15 mm edge tear bottom right, otherwise in fine condition, with excellent tonal range and superb detail of the building’s infrastructure, 11 employees and their dog, and the scarified and partially denuded hillside in the background.

An early photograph of the foundry and blast furnace of the Eskbank Ironworks Co., Lithgow. Established in the mid 1870s, the company had formerly been known as the Lithgow Valley Iron Works. This photograph was probably taken between 1876 and 1878, as horse tramway had been built in the area by 1879.