Sewage Pumping Station 27 is a heritage-listed former sewage pumping station situated in

Callan Park Callan Park, with the heritage listed name Callan Park Conservation Area & Buildings, is a heritage listed site in Lilyfield, a suburb in the Inner West Council in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Callan Pa ...

Rozelle Rozelle is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 4 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Inner West Council. Location Rozelle si ...

Inner West Council Inner West Council is a local government area located in the inner western region of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The council makes up the eastern part of this wider region, and was formed on 12 May 2016 from the merger o ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. It is also known as SPS 27. The building is located on the southern side of King George Park. The property is owned by

Sydney Water Sydney Water, formally, Sydney Water Corporation, is a New South Wales Government owned statutory corporation that provides potable drinking water, wastewater and some stormwater services to Greater Metropolitan Sydney, the Illawarra and the B ...

. It was added to the

New South Wales State Heritage Register The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...

on 18 November 1999.

History

In 1873,

Sydney Harbour Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea (p ...

was found to be grossly polluted with water-borne diseases. After a severe outbreak of typhoid fever in 1875 the government created the

City and Suburban Health Board to investigate an alternative means of disposing of the City's growing sewage waste. This led to the construction of the Bondi Ocean Outfall Sewer (BOOS) in 1889 and the creation of the low level sewage pumping station system to transfer sewage against gravitation in low lying areas around the Harbour. Twenty Stations were built in the first generation of LLSPSs late in the 19th century, and in the subsequent development of other Ocean Outfall Sewers to serve the southern, western and northern suburbs, more than 115 pumping stations were in operation by the late 1950s'. The physical manifestations of the first 50 years of this system are the station superstructures, the majority of which are still functioning today. SPS27 itself was built in 1911-12 by the Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage. It was decommissioned in 1997 after an investigation in the early 1990s revealed that the building was in poor condition and was "at the end of its useful life"; it was replaced by a new station on an adjacent site. Conservation works were undertaken in 2014, reflecting the site's heritage value.

Description

SPS 27 is conventional LLSPS with a concrete substructure and a single storey

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

superstructure designed in Federation Romanesque. The structure was designed to be sympathetic with the nearby Kirdbridge block of the Callan Park Hospital. Externally, there is a hipped

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...

roof and a timber louvered ventilator; boxed

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...

; random course picked sandstone walls; multi-paned timber framed fixed

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s with multi-paned timber framed fixed sash windows with multi-paned

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...

s and dressed sandstone surrounds. Entrance consists of a timber framed, ledged and sheeted double opening door with original hasp and staple, keeper and top/bottom bolts. Above the door is a recessed sandstone panel inscribed "MBWS & DB 1911". Rainwater goods consist of colourbond gutters and downpipe. Internally there are exposed timber

trusses A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembla ...

arranged in a cruciform pattern framing the ventilation shaft. Walls are of painted picked sandstone with rubbed sandstone door and window dressings. There is a brick dwarf wall with a 1.8m cyclone fence surrounding three sides of the site, fourth side is bounded by a natural sandstone outcrop. There is a small brick toilet enclosure adjacent to the building. Immediate area around the Station has been covered in concreted and the property overlooks Iron Cove. It is substantially intact however several unsympathetic alterations have taken place. A new colourbond roof replaces an original slate roofing. In general, the fabric is marred by a lack of maintenance. The Station has been decommissioned.

Heritage listing

SPS 27 is of historic and aesthetic significance at the local and state level. Its historic value is derived from its original function which was to serve the

Bondi Ocean Outfall Sewer The Bondi Ocean Outfall Sewer is a heritage-listed sewerage infrastructure at Blair Street, North Bondi, Sydney, Australia. The sewer line commences at the intersection of Oxford Street and College Street in Darlinghurst and then travels in ...

(BOOS). The construction of the BOOS effectively ended the discharge of untreated sewage into Sydney Harbour. It is a rare example of the use of local sandstone as an architectural material in an industrial building designed by the Water Board, and was designed to lend stylistic continuity to the surrounding buildings in the

complex. In addition, the mechanical components housed within the building have potential industrial archaeological value. The Station is located within a small site adjacent to Eastern Park. The structure thus has a level of aesthetic value which is enhanced by its location in picturesque

Iron Cove Iron Cove is a bay on the Parramatta River, in the Inner West (Sydney), inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately due west of Sydney central business district, Sydney's central business district. It i ...

and contributes significantly to the visual catchment of the surrounding landscape. Sewage Pumping Station 27 was listed on the

on 18 November 1999.

References

Bibliography

Attribution