Sewage Pumping Station 271 is a heritage-listed sewage pumping station located adjacent to 5 Carrington Road,

Marrickville Marrickville is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Marrickville is located south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the largest suburb in the Inner West Council local gove ...

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 was designed and built by the

New South Wales Public Works Department NSW Public Works (or New South Wales Public Works), an agency of the Government of New South Wales, was responsible for providing expert advice to government and professional services to government agency clients in New South Wales, Australia. T ...

. It is also known as SPS 271. 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 1889, the newly constructed Board of Water Supply and Sewerage assumed responsibility for the water and sewerage service from the City Council. This instigated a gradual move away from the practise of combining sewerage and stormwater and led to the commencement of the BOOS which discharged into the ocean at Bondi and the South Western system which drained to a sewage farm at

Botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

. A series of low level sewage pumping stations were constructed to transport waste against gravity by means of a series of rising mains. The Carrington Road Pumping Station was built in the late 1890s, and handed over to the Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage in 1900. The low level portions of Marrickville, Newtown,

Erskineville Erskineville is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 6 kilometres south west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. Erskinevill ...

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

and St Peters are still serviced by a low level sewer which discharges into the wells of Marrickville Pumping Station. The sewage is then pumped to the high level of the Eastern Branch of the SWOOS. Marrickville SPS also receives stormwater discharge from the Central stormwater channel during certain high tides in the

Cooks River The Cooks River, a semi-mature tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, is a tributary of Botany Bay, located in south-eastern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The course of the long urban waterway has been altered to accommodate various deve ...

Description

The Marrickville SPS complex consists of a combined boiler house and engine room, a large

chimney A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typic ...

stack and a residence. The residence is an unadorned two-storey brick building designed in Federation Queen Anne style. Masonry is

English bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by si ...

and the facade is accentuated by timber filigree detailing. The pumping station/ boiler house is designed in classic Federation Romanesque style. Decorative Gothic

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es with steep copings flank its sides, round headed windows surmounted by arches of rusticated

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) ...

typify the window openings, and the walls and

gables Gables may refer to: * The plural of gable, portion of walls between the lines of sloping roofs * Ken Gables (1919-1960), Major League Baseball pitcher * Gables, Nebraska, an unincorporated community in the United States * Gables, New South Wales, ...

are accentuated by machicolation motifs. The gables have sandstone copings with bracketed kneelers. The windows are small paned figured glass with pivotal

awnings An awning or overhang is a secondary covering attached to the exterior wall of a building. It is typically composed of canvas woven of Acrylic fiber, acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tig ...

typical of the Federation style. The internal doors are round-headed diagonal-panelled double doors and are similar in style to the external doors. The building originally had a slate roof with terracotta hips, ridges and

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

s. Both the boiler and engine house have since been clad in terracotta tile. The

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

roofs have

monitors Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...

, which are centrally placed and continue approximately half the length of the roof and are fitted with fixed steel louvres. The roof

truss 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 assembl ...

in the engine house is a delicate hand-wrought Warren truss strengthened internally with matchboarding. The exposed

rafter A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members such as wooden beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof shingles, roof deck and its associated ...

s are rounded on the ends, and this attention to detail is typical of the quality of carpentry throughout. The internal

pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...

, which correspond with the buttresses, hold the overhead crane rail. The overhead crane is a simple undertrussed steel-girder hand-operated crane typical of the early twentieth century. The chimney stack is polychromatic brickwork on a square base which changes to an octagonal shaft some three metres above the ground. It is finished with an ornate cap. The stack is a local landmark. The station is substantially intact and in good condition. The Residence building is in good condition and the fabric is substantially intact.

Heritage listing

SPS 271 displays a high level of architectural sophistication in the execution of

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

Queen Anne and Romanesque styles. It has the highest level of aesthetic significance of pumping stations within the Sydney Water sewerage system and is the most intact example of a pair of stylistically complete Federation industrial buildings. It is technologically unique (one of only three of its type), having the dual function of carrying both sewage and stormwater. It has a high level of industrial archaeological value evidenced by the Blackstone three cylinder diesel pump (steam driven until 1954) which dates from 1920, and an outstanding level of technological significance due to the manner and method in which it functioned within the SWOOS system. It had the unique capability of pumping waste from the sewage wells to either the high-level sewer or the eastern stormwater channel. It is one of the oldest SPSs still functioning, and presently discharges into the SWOOS. Sewage Pumping Station 271 was listed on the

on 18 November 1999.

References

Bibliography

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Attribution