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

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 s ...

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

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, 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 Government of New South WalesState-owned corporation, owned statutory authority, statutory corporation that provides potable drinking water, wastewater and some stormwater services to Sydney ...

. 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, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a ria, natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove River, Lane ...

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 rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

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 (CGI) or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America), zinc (in Cyprus and Nigeria) or ...

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 sty ...

; 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 windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

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

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

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, a fourth side is bounded by a natural sandstone outcrop. There is a small brick toilet enclosure adjacent to the building. The 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 (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 Callan Park 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 of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately due west of Sydney's central business district. It is surrounded by the suburbs of Birchgrove, Balmain ...

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