Newcastle Reservoirs are heritage-listed former and disused reservoirs, now used for public tours, at 51 Brown Street, The Hill, New South Wales, Australia. They were designed by Cecil West Darley and the NSW Public Works Department and built from 1880 to 1918 by the Public Works Department. It is also known as Newcastle Reservoirs Site, Brown Street Reservoirs, Newcastle Reservoir No.1, Newcastle Pumping Station and Reservoir No.2 Valve House. The property is owned by Hunter Water. The reservoirs were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 April 2018.
History Pre- and post-contact Aboriginal custodianship The place now called Newcastle was part of the traditional lands of the Awabakal people, who called it Muloobinba. Plentiful fresh water was available to them from waterholes on the plain extending inland, and also from the creeks draining the hills beyond.
European The Newcastle convict station at first relied on spring water, although public and private wells were gradually sunk, their numbers increasing with the coming of free settlers. Most inhabitants of inner Newcastle and of the colliery townships that multiplied from the 1840s onwards made do with what surface water could be found, while water-carters made a good living even if their product was poor. Some better quality houses were provided with roof-fed in-ground water tanks. Even these, however, were liable to contamination from household cesspits and runoff. Those who could obtain only "stagnant, impure or putrid-smelling water" and could not afford sand-filled filtration vessels were advised to strain it through a linen cloth into "a large clay flower pot containing successive layers of sand, gravel and charcoal". From the hole at the bottom, stuffed with sponge, might come acceptable water, although bathing and clothes washing remained problematic.Jones, G., 1967
The use of the "English filter", as sand filtration was called after the Metropolis Water Act 1852 (UK) made its use compulsory amongst London water companies, was effective in reducing contamination because of the formation of a "slimy layer", which with the development of germ theory was understood to harbour the microbial communities that trapped organic material, bacteria, viruses and cysts.Kirby, R., 1990, pp.427-428
During protracted periods of drought, some colliery companies supplied their settlements with water brought by rail from Maitland, while some families made do with locomotive water. The consequences of contaminated water were demonstrated by diarrhoea, dystentery, diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid and cholera, particularly among infants. The lack of reticulated water militated against horticulture and encouraged a dusty atmosphere. Some thought that poor water quality increased the local consumption of alcoholic beverages.
In 1866 the Newcastle municipality established a water committee, which in 1875 engaged engineer Francis Bell to recommend a central water source; but no consensus was arrived at. George Alfred Lloyd, Member for Newcastle, then lobbied for a properly capitalised Hunter River District Water Supply that would serve not only Newcastle and the colliery townships but also East Maitland, West Maitland and other centres.Armstrong, J., 1967
As Newcastle was only one of numerous Australasian towns requiring such as scheme, action was taken by the public sector. In 1876, on the recommendation of G.R. Stephenson (nephew of the famed George Stephenson), William Clark M.Inst.C.E. (1821-1880), an eminent English-born engineer, was identified by the Colonial Office and engaged by the Government of New South Wales to advise on the water supply and drainage of Sydney. During his two years in NSW, Clark also advised on schemes for Newcastle, Bathurst, Goulburn, Orange, Adelaide and Brisbane, and afterwards for both Wellington and Christchurch. Clark was a most versatile engineer whose accomplishments included the designing of a water supply and sewerage scheme for Calcutta; the heating and ventilation of important public buildings; the construction of railways; and the joint invention of the steam roller.Boase, G. C., 1887, p.410
In October 1877 Clark submitted his report on the Hunter River District water supply; but it was some years before the scheme was approved by NSW Parliament under the Country Towns Water and Sewerage Act 1880 (NSW). This empowered the Department of Public Works (PWD) to construct water supply and sewerage systems for regional centres, with construction and supply costs to be borne by municipalities. Clark appears to have based his design on that of his Calcutta water supply scheme, completed in the mid-1860s, concerning which he and Florence Nightingale had conducted a correspondence.
Clark concluded that the best available water source was the Hunter River at Bolwarra, above West Maitland. Although the water was to some extent turbid, Clark considered that it might successfully be treated by progressive filtration through tanks supplied with filtration media of sand and gravel. A suitable, flood-free site for such a complex was available at nearby Walka, whence water would be pumped through a tunnel to a suitably enlarged natural lagoon. After settling, water would be pumped to the highest of a series of tanks, each containing layers of sand and gravel, through which it would progressively pass before arriving, much purified, at the lowest tank. From here it would be pumped via a cast-iron pipeline to a 1,000,000-gallon capacity quadrangular-shaped receiving reservoir at Buttai Hill, some five miles distant, some water being drawn off to supply a distribution reservoir serving East Maitland, West Maitland and Morpeth.Jordan, B., 2015
From Buttai the water would be gravitated through a 15" diameter pipeline to a main distribution reservoir next to the old Newcastle National School, situated on The Hill above the city proper. The small number of dwellings above the site would be supplied by a smaller reservoir at The Obelisk, to be gravity fed by night or by steam pump as usage demanded. Further reservoirs would be established as and where required for supplying the suburbs and outlying colliery townships. Clark intended that all reservoirs should be excavated from the natural rock and lined with puddle clay, or cement if necessary, and roofed in timber and corrugated iron to protect against contamination. All were to be circular in shape, except that at Buttai, where good-quality sandstone was available. Clark considered that his scheme would go far towards reducing the local death rate, which he considered was three times what it should have been had potable water been readily available.Clark, W., 1877
The Buttai and Newcastle reservoirs, as executed, bore little resemblance to Clark's concept plans. Both the Buttai and Newcastle reservoirs were wholly designed and approved by engineers of the PWD; for by the time of their commencement, Clark was dead. His original surveys and concept plans, as well as the PWD working drawings of the reservoirs, were lost in the destruction by fire of the Garden Palace, Sydney, where the PWD Harbour and Rivers Branch was largely quartered. Tracings, and presumably copies of Clark's 1877 report, had to be relied on for the development of new drawings. The rock at the reservoir locations selected by Clark having been found unsuitable, both structures had to be executed in masonry with barrel arch roofs, greatly increasing their sophistication and cost. Moreover, Clark's concept of corrugated iron roofs with timber frames, which while cheap would have imposed maintenance and evaporation penalties, was also discounted in favour of a much more substantial structures. These, ironically enough, incorporated Clark's greatest contribution to engineering practice: the tied brick arch, which he had developed in 1858.
In British India, Clark employed the technique not only for reservoirs and roof tanks but for roofing engine houses, boiler houses and even two-storey dwellings, using spans of between 20 and 40 feet. The thrust of the arches was sustained by a system of wrought iron tie rods passing through and secured by hollow pentagonal cast iron beams from which the barrel vaults were sprung from the sloping top flange. These were fully accessible for maintenance. The weight of the wall or parapet prevented buckling or twisting of the beams which, supported by the tie rods, prevented side pressure on the walls which carried only the weight of the roof, making the roof resistant to ground settling. The tie rods could be used singly or in pairs.House of Commons UK, pp.25-26Burn, R. S., 1871, pp.178-179
The Buttai and Newcastle reservoirs were designed not by Clark but by Cecil West Darley, Resident Engineer, Newcastle, for the Harbour and Rivers Navigation Branch of the PWD. Approved by Edward Orpen Moriarty as Engineer-in-Chief, they were afterwards classified as PWD Type A. The design was considerably more expensive than that of the other eight types evolved by the PWD up until 1891; and it was probably for this reason that it was never again used. (Darley). Irish-born Darley had already garnered considerable experience of hydrology, not least in his connection with the Hydraulic Engine House and hydraulic cranes, visible across the harbour at Bullock Island. The reservoir construction, undertaken by Thomas Bourke of Wallsend, was at first supervised by Darley until he was promoted as Moriarty's Principal Assistant Engineer, his place being taken by Robert Hickson, later Under-Secretary for Public Works and first President of the Sydney Harbour Trust. Darley himself went on to become President of the Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage, Engineer-in-Chief for metropolitan sewerage construction, and ultimately Engineer-in-Chief to the PWD. Upon his return to the UK he was appointed Inspecting and Consulting Engineer to the NSW Government.
Whether it was Clark himself who made Moriarty aware of the tied arch technique is unknown; but whatever the case, Moriarty must have approved the Buttai reservoir's lack of the turf roof covering of its Newcastle contemporary. Both reservoirs shared ornate Tuscan-Doric style entrances in Sydney stone, a treatment characteristic of the Victorian's understanding of their engineering achievements as part of a much older tradition. The pentagonal beams, and probably the wrought iron ties, were fabricated by James Stuart Rodgers, proprietor of the Newcastle Foundry in Lower Church Street, with whom Darley had a long professional relationship; the reservoir pipework was supplied by Morison and Bearby of Bullock Island.
By 1885 most elements of the Walka scheme, with the exception of the pumping station itself, were completed, but water was not yet available by which to ameliorate the diseases of that summer. Public anxiety was such that a temporary pumping station was provided. So it was that, at 2p.m. on the last day of the year, as reported under the headline "Water in Newcastle at Last", Robert Hickson and some pressmen watched as the first water poured into the capacity Newcastle reservoir. As Glennie Jones observed, "It was almost beyond belief that the moment for which Newcastle had waited for over 10 years had at last arrivedwith the advent of water had come the first essential prerequisite to good health."