The long drop

This is Coop's Shot Tower within Melbourne Central shopping centre/offices/train station.

The tower was built on the site in 1888 and incorporated into the existing shopping madhouse in 1991 (30 years after the tower ceased commercial operation). Shot towers were used to make lead shot for firearms. Molten lead would be dropped through a sieve at the top of the tower then, in free-fall, surface tension would form the hot metal into balls which cooled as they fell, these were then caught in a water-filled basin at the bottom. Quite interesting!

There is another one of these buildings near me in East Melbourne - Clifton Hill Shot Tower. It took me a while to work out why a chimney would have windows in it, so I felt quite pleased with myself when the penny dropped, so to speak.