Glen Stuart remembers the dairy at his grandmother's house (273 Bridge St ) in the years after World War II.

The dairy was in the brick buildings at the back of the yard at the rear of the house. The yard was mostly covered but the was a section near the back gate.

The kitchen was along the Williamstown Rd side with a window overlooking the garden at the side of the house. There was also a window where his grandmother could see if any customers were at the back gate. Beyond the kitchen was his Auntie Mary's room. Glen remembers these rooms as being made of weatherboard although these days they are brick.

In the back corner of the yard on the lane, was the boiler room. The wall onto the lane was also weatherboard at the time with a small window. Often Glen's father, William Raeburn Stuart, would throw the firewood through a missing pane of glass rather than bringing it in through the yard. There was also a cooler and a compressor in this room.

The next room had the sterilser and bottlefiller. It also two large troughs for washing the bottles and racks for drying them.

Fay Bates (nee Devine) worked there for a short time while living with her grandparents at 488 Williamstown Rd .

I always remember the dairy as Stuart's. I had an odd job that I'd go in there and I'd wash the bottles. It was quite dark in there and had these old stone double troughs and all the bottles and you had this great long bottlebrush and you'd be sloshing away. It was always cold in that place.

A next room was a storeroom and the refridgeration was in the final room. Glen remembers pipes running above the windows connecting the refridgeration system with the compressor/boiler room.

Sketched layout of Gladesdale Dairy around 1945-50 from recollections by Glen Stuart
(not to scale, drawn by David Thompson during a conversation with Glen in 2005)