Sawtooth roofed factory sheds and brick warehouses hold breweries and studios, and Strictly Ballroom used a shopfront on Victoria Road.
What Marrickville looks like
Sawtooth roofed factory sheds and unrendered brick warehouses run along the streets south of the railway, most of them put up between the 1880s and the 1930s. Roller doors and loading docks face wide roads built for trucks rather than pedestrians, and a few sheds still carry their original sawtooth glazing along the ridge.
Several of the old buildings now hold breweries and bars. occupies a geometric breezeblock building on Sydenham Road, a former yoghurt factory with its loading bay still facing the street. Wildflower Brewing runs oak wine barrels along the walls of a former metal foundry nearby, with no conventional brewhouse in sight.
The shopping strip runs along , two storey parapeted buildings with awnings over the footpath and corner shopfronts, a butcher and grocers among them under painted signs older than the shops themselves. , a rendered corner building with arched window heads and a bracketed cornice, stands on the same road.
sits below the level of the surrounding streets, a sunken oval ringed by a grandstand and rows of terrace roofs. The Bankstown Line runs through the suburb at grade, goods lines alongside the passenger tracks past fenced yards and rear laneways.
Shot in Marrickville
Strictly Ballroom used a Victoria Road shopfront as Kendall's dance studio in 1992. Colin from Accounts filmed the interior of its fictional Gordon's Echo Park brewery inside a real Marrickville brewery, Stockade Brew Co.
Two fictional venues, two real buildings
Marrickville plays itself both times. A real shopfront on Victoria Road became a dance studio for Strictly Ballroom, and a real brewery on Cadogan Street became a different, fictional brewery for Colin from Accounts.
Strictly Ballroom, 1992
Played Kendall's dance studio, 1992
Strictly Ballroom used the shopfront and its flat roof as Kendall's dance studio, with a temporary Coca-Cola sign built for the rooftop scene where Scott and Fran dance above the street. The shopfront now trades as a travel agency. The building has no heritage listing, and a six storey apartment block could replace it under the site's current planning controls.
Colin from Accounts, season 1
Played Gordon's Echo Park brewery, present day
Colin from Accounts filmed the interior of its fictional Gordon's Echo Park brewery inside the real Stockade Brew Co. The building is a 750 square metre industrial warehouse fitted out as a brewery and bar in 2018. Stockade closed the venue in 2023 and moved its brewing to Goulburn, but the Cadogan Street building itself still stands.
Collingwood's old leather and boot factories along Gipps Street and Wellington Street are the same scale of brick industrial building now doing the same job, Stomping Ground Brewery runs out of a former warehouse on Gipps Street the way Philter runs out of a former yoghurt factory. The polychrome brick Yorkshire Brewery a few streets over is a taller, more ornamented example of the same brick warehouse conversion. Collingwood's bluestone laneways and taller multi storey woolstores read differently in a wide shot, so keep to single storey sheds and loading bays for the closest match. Try searching brick warehouse conversion now.
East Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York
East Williamsburg's old shoe, textile and metal factories sit on similar industrial blocks to Marrickville's own. More than one converted factory there now runs as a brewery rather than a workshop, at a similar single-shed scale. New York rear fire escapes and the elevated line a few blocks over would give the city away in a wider or higher shot. Try searching converted factory brewery now.
Ballard's old maritime and sawmill buildings around 15th Avenue now hold more than a dozen breweries and taprooms, ordinary industrial warehouse space turned brewery row rather than one landmark conversion. Ballard's own buildings are looser and more timber framed than Marrickville's brick. Keep to tight interiors and loading bays; Ballard's timber houses and the Puget Sound waterfront would give away a different city in a wide shot. Try searching industrial warehouse brewery space now.
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