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Botany Water Reserves
The Botany Water Reserves is a heritage-listed area that was historically used as part of Sydney's water supply system. It is located at 1024 Botany Road, Mascot, New South Wales, Australia. The site is now reserved as parkland, also containing a golf course. It was designed by City Engineers, W. B. Rider, E. Bell (1856–1871), and Francis Bell (1871–1878). It is also known as Botany Dams, Botany Swamps, Botany Wetlands, Mill Stream, Bridge Pond, The Lakes Golf Club, Eastlakes Golf Course, Bonnie Doon Golf Club, and Astrolabe Park. The property is owned by Sydney Water, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999.
On 29 April 1770 Captain James Cook made his first landfall in Australia at Botany Bay. The botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, and his Swedish assistant, Daniel Solander from Cook's ship HMS Endeavour, spent several days ashore collecting vast numbers of previously unknown plants. Cook was in two minds about a suitable name for the Bay – his journal first refers to it as Stingray's Harbour, then as Botanist Bay, then both were crossed out and the present Botany Bay inserted, no doubt because of Banks and Solander's work. Since its name comes from the Bay on which it stands, Botany can well claim to have the oldest English place name in Australia.
Cook's recommendation and Banks' enthusiasm were largely responsible for the British Government's decision to found a penal settlement at Botany Bay. When Governor Phillip arrived in mid-summer in 1788 however, he found the harbour shallow and exposed, and the shore swampy and lacking sources of fresh water. As a result, the First Fleet sailed on to Port Jackson, finding a more suitable site for settlement at Sydney Cove.
Botany was first planned as an agricultural district, and the principal industry was to be market gardening. Instead it became an industrial area, boasting a fellmonger's yard and a slaughter works. As early as 1809, Mr E. Redmond came to settle in the district, but the first important developer was Simeon Lord (1771–1840), who built a fulling mill in 1815 on the site that later became that of the old water works. In 1823 he received a grant of 600 acres (240 ha), followed by further grants. Part of the estate was subdivided by 1887. Lord, the "merchant prince of Botany Bay", manufactured fine wool cloth, and was also one of the merchants instrumental in the founding of Sydney Hospital. He gave land for the sites of two early churches in Botany, and Lord Street is named after him. Banksia Street, Sir Joseph Banks Park and Booralee Park all commemorate those early days.
The Sydney Water Works were established in Botany in 1858 and were fed by the many springs in the area. In 1886, the last year of full pumping, 1864 million gallons of water were supplied to Sydney from these water works. Although the scheme was Sydney's major source of water for 30 years, it did not supply water in the Botany area and local residents depended on natural sources and tanks.
Following European colonisation the first substantial interventions in the area occurred in 1815 when the enterprising merchant Simeon Lord had a dam constructed to the west of the present Botany Road for the purpose of establishing the colony's first woollen mill. A second dam was constructed near the present Engine House ruins for a flour mill. This mill continued operating until about 1847 while the textile factory was closed by about 1856.
From 13 July 1855 the City Council began resuming land around, and including, the Botany wetlands for the city's main water supply scheme – the first time land resumptions were made for this purpose. (The land was transferred to the Water Board in 1888.) Of this land about 75 acres of Lord's estate was resumed which included his house (demolished in the 1930s though the site of which is in the vicinity of the present heliport), the mill sites, various cottages and the earthworks associated with Lord's mill dams.
The initial water supply scheme of the mid-1850s, by the City Engineer W. B. Rider, was abandoned with the appointment of Edward Bell to the position. The surviving Engine House and chimney date from the implementation, in the late 1850s, of Bell's scheme while the stone retaining walls for the Engine Pond and outlet sluice probably date from the 1870s work on the Engine Pond augmentation. Between 1866 and the mid-1870s six dams were constructed, and reconstructed for various reasons, from the Mill Pond to Gardeners Road using piling of sheet timber facing filled with sand forming a core of a turfed bank. In 1859 a 30" sand-cast iron main was completed between the Engine House and the Crown Street reservoir. The pipes were made in Scotland in 1856 and machined with such remarkably fine tolerance that, of the total length of 4 miles (6.4 km), the outside diameter varied by only 6mm and allowed the pipes to be laid without jointing material. Part of this easement coincides with the present study area in the vicinity of the Engine House.
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Botany Water Reserves
The Botany Water Reserves is a heritage-listed area that was historically used as part of Sydney's water supply system. It is located at 1024 Botany Road, Mascot, New South Wales, Australia. The site is now reserved as parkland, also containing a golf course. It was designed by City Engineers, W. B. Rider, E. Bell (1856–1871), and Francis Bell (1871–1878). It is also known as Botany Dams, Botany Swamps, Botany Wetlands, Mill Stream, Bridge Pond, The Lakes Golf Club, Eastlakes Golf Course, Bonnie Doon Golf Club, and Astrolabe Park. The property is owned by Sydney Water, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999.
On 29 April 1770 Captain James Cook made his first landfall in Australia at Botany Bay. The botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, and his Swedish assistant, Daniel Solander from Cook's ship HMS Endeavour, spent several days ashore collecting vast numbers of previously unknown plants. Cook was in two minds about a suitable name for the Bay – his journal first refers to it as Stingray's Harbour, then as Botanist Bay, then both were crossed out and the present Botany Bay inserted, no doubt because of Banks and Solander's work. Since its name comes from the Bay on which it stands, Botany can well claim to have the oldest English place name in Australia.
Cook's recommendation and Banks' enthusiasm were largely responsible for the British Government's decision to found a penal settlement at Botany Bay. When Governor Phillip arrived in mid-summer in 1788 however, he found the harbour shallow and exposed, and the shore swampy and lacking sources of fresh water. As a result, the First Fleet sailed on to Port Jackson, finding a more suitable site for settlement at Sydney Cove.
Botany was first planned as an agricultural district, and the principal industry was to be market gardening. Instead it became an industrial area, boasting a fellmonger's yard and a slaughter works. As early as 1809, Mr E. Redmond came to settle in the district, but the first important developer was Simeon Lord (1771–1840), who built a fulling mill in 1815 on the site that later became that of the old water works. In 1823 he received a grant of 600 acres (240 ha), followed by further grants. Part of the estate was subdivided by 1887. Lord, the "merchant prince of Botany Bay", manufactured fine wool cloth, and was also one of the merchants instrumental in the founding of Sydney Hospital. He gave land for the sites of two early churches in Botany, and Lord Street is named after him. Banksia Street, Sir Joseph Banks Park and Booralee Park all commemorate those early days.
The Sydney Water Works were established in Botany in 1858 and were fed by the many springs in the area. In 1886, the last year of full pumping, 1864 million gallons of water were supplied to Sydney from these water works. Although the scheme was Sydney's major source of water for 30 years, it did not supply water in the Botany area and local residents depended on natural sources and tanks.
Following European colonisation the first substantial interventions in the area occurred in 1815 when the enterprising merchant Simeon Lord had a dam constructed to the west of the present Botany Road for the purpose of establishing the colony's first woollen mill. A second dam was constructed near the present Engine House ruins for a flour mill. This mill continued operating until about 1847 while the textile factory was closed by about 1856.
From 13 July 1855 the City Council began resuming land around, and including, the Botany wetlands for the city's main water supply scheme – the first time land resumptions were made for this purpose. (The land was transferred to the Water Board in 1888.) Of this land about 75 acres of Lord's estate was resumed which included his house (demolished in the 1930s though the site of which is in the vicinity of the present heliport), the mill sites, various cottages and the earthworks associated with Lord's mill dams.
The initial water supply scheme of the mid-1850s, by the City Engineer W. B. Rider, was abandoned with the appointment of Edward Bell to the position. The surviving Engine House and chimney date from the implementation, in the late 1850s, of Bell's scheme while the stone retaining walls for the Engine Pond and outlet sluice probably date from the 1870s work on the Engine Pond augmentation. Between 1866 and the mid-1870s six dams were constructed, and reconstructed for various reasons, from the Mill Pond to Gardeners Road using piling of sheet timber facing filled with sand forming a core of a turfed bank. In 1859 a 30" sand-cast iron main was completed between the Engine House and the Crown Street reservoir. The pipes were made in Scotland in 1856 and machined with such remarkably fine tolerance that, of the total length of 4 miles (6.4 km), the outside diameter varied by only 6mm and allowed the pipes to be laid without jointing material. Part of this easement coincides with the present study area in the vicinity of the Engine House.