mansion "Arnott Holme". Arnott then sold it in 1898 to Isaac Winn, owner of the big Newcastle department store. Winn renamed the mansion "Winn Court".BHP constructed, in the early 1920s, a very fine mansion in Crebert Street (named after Peter Crebert [1825-1895], an immigrant from Wiesbaden in Germany), with extensive gardens, for their General Manager. Now privately owned and named The Bella Vista, it is used as a weddings and functions centre. Arrival of industry In 1896, BHP acquired land on the river shore at Mayfield East for smelters, and in 1910 it was decided that they would construct here a major steel works and foundries, with a 350-ton blast furnace and three 65-ton open hearth steel furnaces, a bloom mill and heavy rail mill, with by-product coke ovens to supply coke for the blast furnaces. The advantages of the site played a major part in this decision: for transport both rail and shipping already existed, and they had close proximity to the Newcastle and South Maitland coalfields, (the coal consumption in 1947 was 30,000 tons each week). The task of reclaiming swampland at Port Waratah for the main site began in January 1913, and the New South Wales Government undertook to dredge and maintain a river channel between the works and the sea, wide and deep at low water to the steelwork's basin and wharves. Altogether the company acquired . The blast furnace commenced operations in March 1915. Other industries followed, such as galvanized iron manufacturers John Lysaght & Co., (1921), Rylands Bros (wire, nails, rivets, bolts, springs etc.), tubemakers Stewarts & Lloyds (1934), and the Newcastle Chemical Co, (1940), and sited themselves adjacent to the steel works. The result was pollution which began to affect Mayfield which lost its fashionable status. The housing erected during and after World War I was overwhelmingly for those with employment in the heavy industries. A large proportion of the Steel Works closed down in September 1999 which had a knock on effect with adjacent industries, several of whom were now struggling with developing world markets. The remaining steel mills (Australian Tube Mills, Newcastle Wire Mill and Rod Mill) remain in operation to this day under the Liberty Steel umbrella. Gallery References General The B.H.P. Review - Jubilee Number, Melbourne, Victoria, June 1935. Newcastle - 150 Years, edited by Eric Lingard, Newcastle, 1947. The Diocese of Newcastle, by A.P.Elkin, Sydney, 1955. Federal Directory