Yan Yean Water Supply System Conservation Management Plan Volume 2: History

Final May 2007

Prepared for Melbourne Water

© Context Pty Ltd 2007 All rights reserved; these materials are copyright. No part may be reproduced or copied in any way, form or by any means without permission. Project Team: Lesley Alves – Historian Context Pty Ltd - David Helms, Natica Schmeder, Chris Johnston, Jackie Donkin & Fae Ingledew

Godden Mackay Logan – Tony Brassil Dr Helen Doyle - Historian

Context Pty Ltd 22 Merri Street, Brunswick 3056 Phone 03 9380 6933 Facsimile 03 9380 4066

Email [email protected]

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V

PREFACE VI

1 PROVIDING A WATER SUPPLY FOR MELBOURNE 7 1.1 Introduction 7 1.2 Melbourne’s early water supply 7 1.3 Development of Melbourne’s infrastructure 8 1.4 James Blackburn 9 1.5 Development of the Yan Yean water supply system 9 1.5.1 History of the site 9 1.5.2 Blackburn’s water supply scheme 11 1.5.3 Construction of the Yan Yean Reservoir and associated system 13 1.5.4 Improving supply –fixing problems with the system 14 1.5.5 Increasing supply - additions to the system 18 1.6 Role in Melbourne’s development 21 1.7 Developing other water supply systems 22 1.7.1 Maroondah and O’Shannassy Systems 22 1.7.2 Upper Yarra, Thomson, Sugarloaf and other storages 23 2 MANAGING THE WATER SUPPLY 25 2.1 Introduction 25 2.2 Governance 25 2.3 Maintenance 25 3 ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS 29 3.1 Introduction 29 3.2 The reservoirs 29 3.2.1 Yan Yean Reservoir 29 3.2.2 Service Reservoirs 31 3.2.3 Toorourrong Reservoir 31 3.3 Pipes, mains and aqueducts 32 3.4 Other Australian urban water supply systems 33 3.4.1 Launceston and Hobart 33 3.4.2 Bendigo 33 3.4.3 Brisbane 34 3.4.4 Adelaide 34 3.4.5 Sydney 35 4 THE PRESTON RESERVOIRS 37 4.1 Introduction 37 4.2 Preston Reservoir No. 1 37 4.3 Preston Reservoirs 2 & 3 39

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4.4 Use of the Preston reservoirs and later developments 43 5 DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES 45 5.1 Introduction 45 5.2 Early vistas 45 5.3 Protecting and beautifying the reservoir 47 5.4 The Caretakers’ gardens 53 5.4.1 Yan Yean 53 5.4.2 Wallaby Creek 54 5.4.3 Preston and Toorourrong 54 5.5 Reference Areas 55 5.6 Protection of the Plenty Ranges watershed 55 5.7 Aqueduct plantings 56 5.8 Beautification of St Georges Road pipe track 58 6 RECREATION AND COMMEMORATION 59 6.1 Introduction 59 6.2 Tourism & recreation 59 6.3 Celebrations and commemorations 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY 63 Primary sources 63 Archives - Public Record Office Victoria 63 Published 63 Newspapers and Articles 63 Secondary sources 63 Published 63 Unpublished 65 Pictures 66 Websites 66 Oral source 66

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our thanks are also extended to the following individuals whose assistance and advice was invaluable in the preparation of this history: • Ross Mugavin of Parks Victoria • Paul Balassone and all the staff at Melbourne Water who provided historic information, plans and oral history. • Doug Kerr

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PREFACE This is Volume 2 of the Conservation Management Plan for the Yan Yean water supply system. The Yan Yean system CMP comprises six volumes as follows:

Volume 1: Executive Summary Volume 1 provides a summary of the study methodology and the key findings and recommendations.

Volume 2: History Volume 2 provides an explanation of the historic development of the Yan Yean system within the context of the historic development of Melbourne and its water supply. It takes a thematic approach, drawing on the key themes set out in existing histories of the Yan Yean system such as Yan Yean. A history of Melbourne’s early water supply and Vital Connections. Melbourne and its Board of Works 1891-1991, and also looks beyond Victoria to the development of water supply systems in other parts of Australia during the nineteenth century. Volume 3: Heritage assessment Volume 3 provides an assessment of the cultural significance of heritage places associated with the Yan Yean system, and concludes with a statement of significance for the whole of the Yan Yean system. Volume 4: Conservation policy The history in Volume 2 and heritage assessment in Volume 3 provides the basis for the conservation policies and management strategies in Volume 4, which includes recommendations to manage the heritage values of the Yan Yean system and implement the CMP. Volume 5: Heritage place and Volume 5 contains place records for all of the heritage places precinct citations associated with the Yan Yean system, which a detailed history, physical description, photographs and statement of significance. The place records are derived from the Melbourne Water Yan Yean system HERMES database. Volume 6: Appendices Volume 6 contains the following reports that provide background or additional information: Yan Yean water supply system CMP & interpretation plan project management plan (March 2006) Context Pty Ltd Indigenous cultural heritage values of the Yan Yean system. Draft report for Context Pty Ltd (November 2005) Heritage Insight Yan Yean water supply system: A review of natural heritage values (December 2005) Ecology Australia Interpretation Plan M57 water main replacement project (2006) Context Pty Ltd.

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1 PROVIDING A WATER SUPPLY FOR MELBOURNE

1.1 Introduction Early Melburnians drew their water supplies from the Yarra River, but problems of pollution and the high cost of delivery soon prompted a search for a better supply. During the 1850s, as James Blackburn’s scheme to bring water from the mountain ranges north of Melbourne was taking shape, other services and institutions essential to the growing city were also being developed. “The Yan Yean” as Melbourne’s water came to be known, was a key resource in Melbourne’s transformation from a small frontier town to a sophisticated modern city with a special pride in its gardens. The innovative Yan Yean water supply system was not without its problems, however, and remedies to improve water quality and quantity reflected scientific theories of the era. One of the main actions taken to improve water quality was to close the catchment to all other uses. During the latter decades of the nineteenth century the Yan Yean system was improved and expanded to its limits. The Wallaby Creek weirs and aqueduct were built to divert water from north flowing creeks, bringing extra water via the Toorourrong Reservoir and Clearwater Channel. The delivery system from Yan Yean was greatly expanded by increasing the pipelines and building service reservoirs. Other water supply systems were also developed, mostly during the twentieth century, integrating the Yan Yean system into a greatly enlarged urban scheme. This is the story of the Yan Yean water supply system and its place in Melbourne’s growth and development from first European settlement to the present. Subsequent chapters will expand on various aspects of the system.

1.2 Melbourne’s early water supply Crucial to the choice of the site for Melbourne in 1834 were the availability of fresh water and access for shipping. Batman’s village began to take shape on the banks of the Yarra River where a rocky barrier near present day Queen Street separated salt water from fresh. The Yarra River was Melbourne’s first water supply, with a distribution system consisting of horse-drawn tanks delivering to households, at high expense to the consumer. The Yarra was also Melbourne’s drain. Within a few years the river was so polluted by wastes created by the settlers and their industries, that its water posed a threat to public health. Melbourne Town Council, formed in 1842, sought suggestions for a clean piped water supply for the town. Of the schemes put forward, the best was that of Melbourne’s Town Clerk, J.C. King, who proposed pumping Yarra water into a reservoir on high ground near Dight’s Falls. However, although Council saw the provision of a water supply as its right and responsibility, it lacked the funds to implement such a scheme. A decade of investigations and deliberations ensued before a decision could be made regarding a suitable water supply system for Melbourne.1 Meanwhile, in 1849, a slight improvement in quality and price was achieved when the Melbourne Water Company commenced pumping water from the Yarra. The

1 Dingle, Tony and Doyle, Helen, Yan Yean, A history of Melbourne’s early water supply, North Melbourne, 2003, pp 3-6.

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water was filtered through charcoal and stored in iron tanks on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders streets. From there it was distributed by water carters.2 The Melbourne Water Company was owned by James Blackburn, who was to become a key player in the story of the Yan Yean water supply system. Following Separation from New South Wales in 1851 the new Victorian Legislative Council, instead of providing the hoped-for funds to the Melbourne Council, appointed a Commission of Sewers and Water Supply, thus taking the matter out of municipal control. In 1854 the Commissioners built a large elevated tank on Eastern Hill with the intention of providing a reticulated supply of water pumped from the Yarra. They had already begun laying pipes in the city, in anticipation of the Yan Yean system, then in course of construction, but the tank was inadequate for the purpose.3

1.3 Development of Melbourne’s infrastructure By this time Melbourne had grown into a sizeable town, serving as a port and commercial centre for the pastoral industry that had spread across the western and central regions of the Port Phillip District. In 1851, the year in which the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the colony of Victoria, Melbourne’s population was 29,000, comprising 38 per cent of the new colony’s total population. The other major event of 1851 was the discovery of gold in payable quantities, which brought immigrants flocking into Victoria. Within a decade Melbourne’s population had more than quadrupled, to 125,000, making it Australia’s largest city.4 The 1850s saw the beginnings of cultural and administrative institutions and infrastructure for essential services that was to change Melbourne from a small primitive frontier town to a large metropolis that boasted the latest in nineteenth century amenities. Building of both the University of Melbourne and the Public Library commenced in 1853. By the end of the decade Parliament House, the Treasury Building and the General Post Office had been started.5 Such buildings were designed to express the permanency, wealth and pride of the young city and reflected the grandeur of the Victorian age. This rapidly growing city required essential services, the most vital being water, but other amenities such as gas and transport services were needed for the burgeoning population. In the early 1850s gasworks, run by private companies, commenced providing reticulated gas for lighting in various parts of the city. By the end of the 1870s the service was being extended to the suburbs within an eight mile radius of the GPO.6 Telephone services commenced in the 1880s, reticulated electricity was provided by the City of Melbourne’s Spencer Street power-house from 1894. The Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Work’s sewerage system did not come into operation until 1897.7

2 Ibid., p.6. 3 Seeger, R.C., “The history of Melbourne’s water supply—Part 2”, Victorian Historical Magazine, Vol. 22, 1947-8., pp 27-8. 4 Dingle, Tony, The Victorians: Settling, McMahons Point, 1984, pp 152-3. 5 Victorian Year Book, Centenary Edition: Melbourne, 1973, pp 178-9. 6 Ibid., pp 224-5. 7 Dingle, 1984, p.161; Victorian Year Book, 1973, pp. 213, 218.

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Victoria’s first railway commenced operating between the city and Sandridge (Port Melbourne) in 1854, with a branch line to St Kilda added in 1857. A line to Geelong was also opened in 1857. Like the gasworks, these and other early suburban lines were developed by private companies, but the companies were unable to become economically viable. By the late 1870s the government had taken over the whole rail system. This included a railway to link the Mt Alexander goldfields with Melbourne, initially planned by a private company in the early 1850s. This line reached Bendigo in 1862, and a line connecting Geelong and Ballarat opened in the same year. Both railways were of a high standard of engineering that was not repeated in subsequent railway construction.8 Water however, being the most urgent need, was to be Victoria’s first major public works engineering project. The new water supply system from Yan Yean was the first of its kind in Australia.

1.4 James Blackburn James Blackburn, born in 1803, trained as an engineer, surveyor and architect, and worked as an inspector of sewers in London. In 1833 he was convicted of forging a cheque and transported for life to Hobart, where his engineering abilities were put to use by the Department of Public Works. He was responsible for many of Tasmania’s early buildings, roads and other engineering projects, including the design and construction of a water supply for Launceston. Blackburn was granted a pardon in 1841 and subsequently set up his own practice. In 1849 he moved to Melbourne, where he commenced private practice and began the Melbourne Water Company. In the same year he was appointed City Surveyor, with the task of investigating options for a water supply for Melbourne.9 Blackburn examined proposals involving pumping plants and reservoirs on the Yarra in the Melbourne area, but preferred a gravitational system that did not rely on pumping machinery. After considering all the catchments in the vicinity of Melbourne, Blackburn proposed the Plenty River as the best source of a water supply. He designed the basic concept plan for the Yan Yean system that was adopted a few years later, but did not live to see it built, as he died of typhoid fever in 1854.10

1.5 Development of the Yan Yean water supply system

1.5.1 History of the site The Plenty Valley The Plenty River rises in Mount Disappointment - a high point in the Great Dividing Range about 50 kilometres to the north of Melbourne. The river and its tributaries run through the thickly timbered forests of the southern slopes of the range before reaching an alluvial flood plain near Whittlesea. In ancient times the valley was blocked by a lava flow from volcanic activity to the west, causing the river to change course to skirt the eastern edge of the resulting basalt layer. Thus the Plenty River marks the border between the Great Basalt Plains of Western Victoria and the Eastern Highlands. At present day Yarrambat, the Plenty has cut a deep gorge into the softer Silurian stone of the eastern side, exposing the basalt in the

8 Ibid., pp 245-8.- 9 Preston, Harley, “Blackburn, James”, in Shaw, A.G.L. and Clark C.M.H., (eds) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol.1 1788-1850, Melbourne, 1966, p.110. 10 Ibid.

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cliffs on the western side.11 The Plenty joins the Yarra at Templestowe. Prior to 1857 the Plenty was a substantial river, “the only stream except the Barwun (sic) deserving the name river” according to Joseph Tice Gellibrand, who explored the district from the west.12 The Plenty Valley is sufficiently elevated to allow for the flow of water by gravity all the way to Melbourne, and this was a key factor in Blackburn’s choice of the Plenty River as the water supply. Early occupation of the Plenty district The fertile Plenty valley was part of the estate of the Wurundjeri willam, a clan of the Kulin people. The land provided a rich food supply - fish and eels in the streams and swamps, kangaroos in the grassy woodlands and a variety of birds and edible plants. Its trees and grasses also provided materials for spears, canoes and string. Early European observers suggested that that Yan Yean was a place where young men underwent their initiation rights, and its place name was derived from the word for young man.13 Aborigines continued to camp in the district for a number of years following contact with European pastoralists who began settling the district in 1837, and many were employed on the pastoral stations. Amongst the early pastoralists to occupy the site of the future Yan Yean Reservoir were John Bear, Captain John Harrison, Patrick Reid, George Sherwin and Dr William Ronald. By the 1840s a strong community had formed at Yan Yean, and residents were successful in having a road laid out from Melbourne to the “Upper Plenty”.14

John Bear and his family arrived at Port Phillip from Devon, England in 1841. They took up several pastoral runs across the Port Phillip District, including the New Leicester station on the Plenty. This run originally extended from the Plenty River to what is now the Kinglake National Park in the north, and to the present suburb of Hurstbridge in the south. Bear planted orchards and vines at Yan Yean, and by the end of the decade was producing wine at his Castle Hill vineyard. The Bear family progressively purchased sections of the run as the land became available for sale, the first being Crown Allotment 20, Parish of Yan Yean in 1842. John’s sons, Thomas Hutchins and John Pinney Bear, were partly responsible for establishing the Chateau Tahbilk winery in the Goulburn Valley.15 A reminder of the Bear family, their squatting empire and the pastoral era in the district, is the unusual earthen building known as Bear’s Castle. Situated on a hill near the site of Bear’s vineyard, it overlooks the northern part of the Yan Yean Reservoir. Built by Bear’s shepherds using a technique known as cob, it originally had the appearance of a small castle. It was used as a shepherd’s hut and later as a temporary home for Thomas Bear’s station manager. Bear’s Castle was a popular tourist landmark until the closure of the catchment.16

11 Edwards, Dianne, Yan Yean: A History, Yan Yean, 1978, p.11; Closs, Gerry, “A Story in a Landscape: A Natural and Human History of the Plenty Valley”, in Ellem, Lucy G. (ed.) The Australian Experience of the Plenty Valley, Bundoora, 1996, pp 2-3. 12 Bride, T.F. Letters from Victorian Pioneers, Melbourne, 1983, p.27. 13 Edwards, pp 11-15. 14 Ibid, pp 15 & 43. 15 Alves, Lesley; “Bear’s Castle”, in Griffiths, Tom, Secrets of the Forest: Discovering History in Melbourne’s Ash Range, Allen & Unwin, 1992, pp 111-4. 16 Ibid.

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Government land sales in 1853 brought new settlers to the area to take up small agricultural allotments, so that the growth of Yan Yean’s settled farming community coincided with the construction of the reservoir.17

Figure 1 Part of Parish of Yan Yean, 1878, as redrawn by A.R. Blair, 1978 (including additional detail) (Edwards, 1978:50)

1.5.2 Blackburn’s water supply scheme James Blackburn’s scheme to bring water from many miles outside Melbourne was innovative in a time when cities tended to rely on water in streams, swamps or wells within or close to city boundaries. London, for example, drew its supplies from the River Thames; Sydney relied on streams and swamps in and around the town until the 1880s. The nineteenth century saw the rapid growth of city populations in Europe and America, with urban supplies unable to keep up with demand. Where reticulated supplies were established in English cities they were intermittent, that is they were only turned on for an hour or two each day. In 1842 New York had addressed the problem of shortage by bringing water along 35 miles of aqueducts from the Croton catchment. Local supplies in unsewered cities were also suffering increasingly from pollution, as the human and industrial wastes mingled with

17 Edwards, p. 51-2.

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stream waters used for drinking. 18 This we have already noted in even such a small city as Melbourne in the early 1850s. Conventional urban systems usually relied on pumping machinery and small impounding reservoirs within or close to the towns. This was the type of scheme King proposed for Melbourne. Blackburn proposed a plan that would address all of the above shortcomings. He had recently designed the Launceston (Tasmania) system, which brought water from a distance of 13 miles.19 For Melbourne, Blackburn proposed to make use of the clear mountain streams that flowed into swamps that fed the Plenty River. Measuring flows above and below the swamps, Blackburn found that almost half of this water was lost through seepage and evaporation, so he planned a channel that would collect the water and take it into the Plenty River below the swamps. Eighteen miles of aqueduct would then take the water from the river to a reservoir on the outskirts of Melbourne. This scheme was calculated to provide a city of 70,000 people with 40 gallons (182 litres) each per day, a very large quantity by the standards of the day. Aware that the diversion of water from the Plenty River would reduce the flow needed to power some mills situated downstream of the aqueduct, Blackburn proposed a small reservoir to provide sufficient water for the mills. However, Blackburn soon saw such a storage reservoir as prudent in the likely event of drought. The site of the proposed reservoir, known as Ryder’s Swamp after the early settler, was a natural basin that could be closed by means of a dam.20 In 1852 Clement Hodgkinson, an assistant surveyor in the Surveyor General’s Department, assessed both King’s and Blackburn’s schemes, and eventually recommended Blackburn’s, with some amendments.21 The Commissioners appointed Matthew Bullock Jackson as the engineer in charge of establishing a water supply system for Melbourne. Jackson was 27 years of age, and his only experience in water supply appears to have been to report on the failure of the Bilberry Dam in Yorkshire, England. He had trained as a surveyor, served an apprenticeship with the eminent engineers George and Robert Stephenson and claimed to be “a practical man in every sense of the word”. He immigrated to South Australia hoping to be employed on designs for the railway, but the project was postponed, so Jackson applied for the job of Chief Engineer for Waterworks in Melbourne.22 Jackson recommended Blackburn’s Plenty scheme. The deciding factors for the Commissioners were the superior quality of the Plenty water and the lower running costs for Blackburn’s gravitational scheme. Although Blackburn’s scheme involved a much higher capital outlay to construct than King’s Yarra scheme would have required, it did not entail the ongoing expense of running pumping machinery. Blackburn’s original plan was modified by engineer Charles Oldham, who joined Hodgkinson and Blackburn in examining the scheme. Oldham, who had experience with water supply and sewerage contracts in England, proposed to amend the plan to divert all of the Plenty water into the reservoir and to carry the water to Melbourne in pipes rather than an open aqueduct.23 These amendments

18 Bruce, F.E., “Water-Supply”, in Singer, Charles et al. (eds) A History of Technology, Vol.5, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp 552-68; Henry, F.J.J., The Water Supply and Sewerage of Sydney, Sydney, 1939. 19 Dingle and Doyle, p.8. 20 Ibid, pp 9-11. 21 13-15. 22 Ibid, pp 21-2; Seeger, p.24; Binnie, G.M., Early Victorian Water Engineers, London, 1981, pp 240-1. 23 Dingle and Doyle, pp 16-17.

12 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP proved to be responsible for some of the system’s problems, and were later altered to accord with Blackburn’s original plan (see below). On his appointment as engineer for the scheme, Jackson made some further amendments, in consultation with Blackburn, including the raising of the embankment to make a larger reservoir. By this stage Melbourne’s population had risen dramatically as gold seekers crowded in. The supply was now calculated to serve 200,000 people with 30 gallons (135 litres) per day - still a generous per capita ration of water.24

1.5.3 Construction of the Yan Yean Reservoir and associated system When on 20 December 1853 Governor La Trobe turned the first sod, the guests invited to the ceremony found the journey to Yan Yean difficult because of the state of the roads and river crossings. The state of the roads was just one of many problems to be overcome by Jackson and the Commissioners. In the early years the scarcity of labour due to the gold rushes forced wages up, as did the granting of the eight hour day to stone masons in 1854. Jackson also experienced problems with the contractors, partly due to his bullying management style.25 The whole project was a huge undertaking. The cast iron pipes, some as large as 30 inches in diameter - amounting to 123,000 miles of piping altogether - were shipped from England. To overcome the bad roads, nineteen miles of wooden tramway were laid beside the pipe track for hauling the pipes, but it was not much better than the road. Three horses were needed to pull each pipe, and many horses were injured by plunging into the holes between the sleepers.26 The pipe track extended from the Carlton Gardens, along Nicholson Street and the route of what is now St George’s Road, then along Plenty Road to Yan Yean. The St George’s Road route avoided the steep slopes of Ruckers Hill at High Street.27 Three bridges were built to carry the pipeline across the streams in its path. A tubular girder bridge on bluestone piers carried the pipeline across Merri Creek at St Georges Road. Bluestone piers carried the pipeline across Darebin Creek, while a single arch bluestone bridge was built to take the pipe and tramline across the Plenty River near Bridge Inn Road.28 At the Yan Yean end a township grew up at the construction site. Over 400 labourers - 700 by 1856 – including some with their families took up residence in slab huts or tents. Yan Yean Quarry School was opened, and the contractors for the embankment opened a hotel, later known as the Yan Yean Hotel. A house was built for the resident engineer, John Charles Taylor. This house later became the caretaker’s residence. The first job was to clear all the vegetation, including some large trees, from the site of the embankment. A quarry was opened to the south of the reservoir for the bluestone facing inside the embankment. Construction of the embankment took three years. The work was carried out using the muscle power of men and beasts for felling timber, digging, moving earth and carrying materials and equipment.

24 Ibid., p 22 25 Ibid., pp 26-9. 26 Ibid., p. 28; Payne, J.W., The Plenty: A centenary history of the Whittlesea Shire, Kilmore, 1975, p.127. 27 Lay, Maxwell, Melbourne Miles: the Story of Melbourne’s Roads, Melbourne, 2003, p.111. 28 Payne, pp 127-8.

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Implements were simple: “ploughs, scoops, and tip-drays drawn by horses and bullocks, shovels wielded by men”.29 A network of pipes was laid through Melbourne’s city streets, under the street channels rather than under the footpaths as Blackburn originally intended. Service pipes made of lead lined with tin were laid to connect with each property. Seventeen hundred fireplugs and fire hydrants were installed in the city. Such a large undertaking for such a young city attracted much interest and anticipation in the community, as everywhere the work of pipe laying was evident. Governor La Trobe, who had favoured the Yan Yean system from the outset, took a personal interest, and made frequent visits to inspect the progress of the works. By the time the system was completed, however, La Trobe had finished his term of office and returned to England.30 In 31 December 1857 a large crowd assembled at the valve house in Carlton Gardens to witness Major-General Edward Macarthur, deputising for the Governor, turning on the Yan Yean water supply. A procession then moved through the streets to the standpipe on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders streets, where the Chairman of the Commission turned on a jet of water that “projected sixty or seventy feet in a perpendicular direction”, splashing the onlookers.31 The project took far longer and was much more expensive than originally estimated. There were accusations of wastage and corruption, with a great deal of blame laid on Jackson. The final figure of £754,203, almost double Jackson’s initial estimate, was never fully explained. Jackson returned to England 1861, a figure of public disgrace at the time when many of the Yan Yean system’s early problems were manifested (see below). Although Jackson had his faults, he suffered more than his share of the blame for the water supply system’s problems.32 Jackson should be remembered as the engineer who developed Blackburn’s innovative plan, working under the great difficulties of gold-rush labour shortages and inflation, long distances and undeveloped transport systems, and sometimes lack of co-operation from government authorities, to provide Melbourne with a reticulated water supply that was generous for the needs of the time. That system, with some modifications, remains in use 150 years later.

1.5.4 Improving supply –fixing problems with the system In the first two decades of its operations the Yan Yean system was plagued with problems of water quality and quantity. The water was discoloured, unpalatable and, in the view of some medical experts, dangerous to health. An increase in diarrhoea and dysentery had been noted from the time the Yan Yean water supply was turned on, but because the theory of water-borne infection was as yet unknown, science could not attribute this to the water supply. The two committees appointed to inquire into the matter in 1858 and 1859 found various causes for the poor quality of the water. Discolouration came from the water flowing through swamps, but it was not considered dangerous to health. Land use above the reservoir was also causing pollution. Water entering the system from Bruce’s Creek was contaminated by sewage from Whittlesea, and by domestic animals using the

29 Payne, p. 126-8. 30 Dingle and Doyle, p. 31; Edwards, p.26-8. 31 Edwards, p.28. 32 Dingle and Doyle, p. p.53; Binnie, G.M., Early Victorian Water Engineers, London, 1981, pp252-5.

14 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP stream. With its high levels of organic matter, the water stagnated in the pipes overnight when its long journey from Yan Yean was slowed by low demand.33 Another report, this time to the Central Board of Health in 1870, identified a sawmill on the upper reaches of the Plenty River and a piggery as causes of pollution, however the worst offenders were herds of travelling livestock: It is not an unusual thing for 600 head of cattle and 15,000 sheep to come down the Magpie and Stump Road in a week, pass through Whittlesea and go down to Greensborough. These overheated animals trample through all the creeks and leave large deposits of dung on the various reserves to be swept into the creek on the first rain. … Again there is scarcely a mob of cattle or sheep pass through but some of them die on the roads and are left by the drivers to rot.34 Despite these concerns, a nexus between organic contamination of water and infection was not scientifically established until the 1870s, so little action was taken to protect the water supply from pollution near the source. The other cause of contamination was lead from faulty tin-lined lead pipes used to connect houses with the mains. Although many people showed symptoms now attributed to lead poisoning, and there were a number of deaths, the condition and its cause were not fully understood by public health officials. Consumers were simply advised to let their taps run for a minute in the mornings before using the water. The use of lead pipes was eventually discontinued and the existing ones replaced with iron pipes.35 Shortages and interrupted supplies were also of concern. Due to the difficulty of regulating water pressure, pipes frequently burst, cutting off supplies. During dry spells, such as the summer of 1862, sufficient pressure could not be maintained to supply all consumers. The problems of regulating supply and the stagnation in the pipes were addressed in the short term by the construction of a small holding reservoir at Preston in 1864. It was filled at night when demand was low. This helped regulate the pressure in the pipes, and provided a daily supply close to Melbourne.36 Because of the problems with water quality, the Yan Yean system, along with its Commissioners and engineer Jackson, became the object of public criticism and scorn. In response to the Commissioners’ failure to provide a clean and constant supply, the government abolished the Commission in 1860 and took direct control of water supply through the Board of Land and Works. From 1862 Melbourne’s water supply was administered by the Water Supply Branch of the Public Works Department.37 By the early 1870s Melbourne’s population had reached 200,000, the maximum the Yan Yean system had been built to serve. More shortages were experienced, particularly by residents of the higher suburbs east of Melbourne. Water rationing was introduced in the summer of 1871-72.38

33 Ibid., pp 40-48 34 Payne, p.130 35 Dingle and Doyle, pp 44-5 36 Ibid., pp 48-51. 37 Seeger, p.32; Payne, p.131 n.35. 38 Dingle and Doyle, p.64.

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Improving water quality Another government inquiry in 1872 considered the effects of land use in the catchment, particularly timber cutting. The forests of the Yan Yean catchment provided timber for the rapidly growing city, however, timber harvesting was identified as a cause of pollution through eroded soil entering the system and fouling by the working animals. More importantly, it was believed forests were essential to water production by attracting rainfall. In 1872, despite the protests of timber interests, the government reserved the catchment of the Yan Yean system for water supply purposes and excluded timber cutters. A year later the reserve was extended across the crest of the ranges to take in two miles of the northern slopes. The Board of Land and Works subsequently acquired all the land adjacent to the reservoir, including the Upper Plenty Farmers’ Common, and in 1886 the Yan Yean catchment was completely closed to all activities except water harvesting. A further measure to improve water quality came with the construction of the Clearwater Channel in 1885 as discussed in the following section. By 1888 a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into Melbourne’s sanitary condition reported favourably on the quality of Yan Yean water, finding it “unusually free from living micro-organisms”.39 At last Melbourne had a clean water supply. The closed catchment policy, once established, was maintained for Melbourne’s later water supply systems, thus ensuring a high standard of clean water, which required little or no treatment. Increasing the rate of supply During the 1870s and 1880s the Department of Water Supply took measures to increase the rate of delivery of water to Melbourne. In 1875 the 30 inch pipe from Yan Yean to Morang was dug up and replaced by an open aqueduct with a larger carrying capacity. The aqueduct ended at small reservoir at Morang, known as the Pipehead Reservoir. As part of the contract to construct the aqueduct, stone walls were built along all or part of the adjoining reserve to keep out wandering livestock. Doyle has noted that the stone wall is marked on a MMBW plan c.1900, extending north of the reservoir towards Gordons Road.40 Ruined sections of the wall can still be seen along both sides of the pipe track reserve in the section south of Bridge Inn Road. The original pipe was re-laid to duplicate the pipeline between Morang and Preston.41 In March 1878 a storm brought heavy rain to the catchment, sending a torrent down the Plenty River. Large tree trunks swept along by the floodwaters blocked the arch of the bridge that carried the aqueduct across the river at Morang. Part of the bridge, aqueduct walls and embankment collapsed under the weight of the built-up waters, cutting off Melbourne’s water supply. William Davidson, the superintending engineer, organised the construction of a temporary wooden flume supported by trestles to breach the gap in the aqueduct. Teams worked day and night to restore the water supply in three days. Davidson was rewarded for his quick action with a promotion to Engineer in Charge of Water Supply. In 1879 the temporary flume was replaced by a wrought iron flume five feet wide and four feet deep, carried across the river on steel decking supported by bluestone piers and abutments. This remained in use until 1960.42

39 Ibid., pp 64-68, 75-76, 84 40 Doyle, Helen, “Yan Yean Pipe track (Preston Reservoir to McDonalds Road)”, draft report prepared for Context Pty Ltd, August 2004. 41 Ibid., p.70. 42 Ibid., pp 70-73; Gibbs, p.17; VPRS 8609/P28 Unit 4, Flume over Plenty River 1879; MMBW Annual Report, 1961.

16 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

Figure 2 Construction of Yan Yean to Morang aqueduct c.1875

17 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

1.5.5 Increasing supply - additions to the system By the end of the 1870s Melbourne was one of the world’s fastest growing cities. With a population of 281,000, Melbourne had outgrown its water supply system, and new sources were urgently sought. In 1881 Davidson sent a young engineer named William Thwaites (who later became the first Engineer-in-Chief of the MMBW) to investigate a possible extension of the Yan Yean system by using water from the northern slopes of the Plenty Ranges. Thwaites recommended that the waters of the north-flowing Wallaby Creek, a tributary of King Parrot Creek, be diverted into the Plenty catchment. This was a relatively inexpensive and quick solution to water shortages, while other sources of supply were being investigated.43 In 1882-83 a weir was built on Wallaby Creek, with an aqueduct and an artificial waterfall, known as the Cascades, to bring seven million gallons per day of clear mountain water to Jack’s Creek, a tributary of the eastern branch of the Plenty River, and thence to the Yan Yean Reservoir. Construction of these works involved up to 1300 workers: axemen to clear and grub the trees, labourers (navvies they were then called) wielding pick and shovel, quarrymen to cut the stone for the aqueducts, masons to shape the stone into pitchers, and carters to haul the stone to the site. The workers were camped in tents, with a mobile store and a policeman to maintain law and order.44 Meanwhile, a greater understanding of waterborne infections had prompted works to prevent the polluted waters of Bruce’s and Scrubby Creeks and the Plenty River from entering the reservoir after they flowed through Whittlesea. Bruce’s Creek was diverted into the Plenty River below the Yan Yean system intake by means of a channel a mile and a half long. Subsequently only water from the unpolluted eastern branch of the Plenty River was harvested. A channel was cut and lined with bluestone to carry the water directly from Jack’s Creek to the Yan Yean Reservoir. This aqueduct, known as the Clearwater Channel, connected directly to the reservoir intake channel near the Plenty River. The connection to the Plenty River at that point was thereafter closed. In 1886 the Toorourrong Reservoir was constructed on the eastern branch of the Plenty River just below the Jack’s Creek junction. Its purpose was to allow the sediments in the fast flowing stream to settle before the water entered the Clearwater Channel. It also contributed an additional five million gallons a day to the Yan Yean water supply.45 In the same year a further extension was made with the construction of the first of four weirs on Silver Creek, another tributary of King Parrot Creek, and an aqueduct to link the weirs with the Wallaby Creek Aqueduct. The diversions of Wallaby and Silver creeks were to be the only exploitation of water resources north of the Great Divide for Melbourne’s use. Later attempts to harvest water from north-flowing streams for the metropolis were strongly resisted by rural political interests.

43 Dingle and Doyle, p.75, Dingle, Tony, “The Cascades” in Griffiths, pp 197-8. 44 Ibid 45 Dingle and Doyle, p.83.

18 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

Figure 3 c.1908 Plan showing the Yan Yean water supply system from Silver Creek to Yan Yean Reservoir (Melbourne Water)

Figure 4 Silver Creek aqueduct, c. 1886 (State Library of Victoria, Image number: b11909)

19 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

As Melbourne’s suburbs expanded, local service reservoirs were also necessary to maintain pressure, particularly in higher areas. Like the Preston Reservoir, they filled overnight, ready for the daily demand. A reservoir was built at Essendon in 1881, with a second one added in 1883. Caulfield Reservoir was also built in 1883 and another was built at Kew in 1886. The last nineteenth century service reservoir was built at Surrey Hills in 1892.46 By 1868 another main was required to satisfy the demands of Melbourne’s growing population. A second 24 inch main, laid from Preston to Collingwood, came into service in 1869 and delivered water from the Preston Reservoir, while the first main delivered the water directly from Yan Yean. Melbourne’s booming population and suburban expansion during the 1870s and 80s put increasing demands on its water supply, and kept the Water Supply Department busy laying new mains. Additional mains were laid to increase delivery and to service distant suburbs. In 1877 the third main, 24 inches in diameter, was taken from the 30 inch main before it entered the Preston Reservoir and laid from Preston to the Merri Creek. From here it reduced to an 18 inch main across the Yarra River at Fairfield on stone piers to supply Kew and Hawthorn. This arrangement enabled water to flow directly from Morang, taking advantage of the higher altitude when more pressure was needed. This was duplicated from the Merri Creek to Kew in 1880. The fourth main - 24 inch cast iron - was laid from Preston, duplicating the first main along St George’s Road and Nicholson Street. In 1885-6 the fifth main - a 30 inch pipe - was laid along the original pipe track from Preston to the Merri Creek. In 1887 the main from Morang to Preston was duplicated, making the carrying capacity equal to that of the aqueduct from Yan Yean. Additional mains were taken from the Merri Creek main to the eastern suburbs and Melbourne in the same year.47 These additions in effect completed the Yan Yean system. As Melbourne’s first reticulated water supply system, originally constructed to provide 200,000 people with 30 gallons each per day, it had been expanded to provide 482,600 people with a daily per capita consumption of around 52 gallons (237 litres) by 1890.48 Twentieth century developments During the twentieth century several changes were made at Yan Yean Reservoir to improve its working within the enlarged water supply system and to upgrade the water quality to modern standards. In 1960 a new reinforced concrete outlet tower was built at the south end of the reservoir with a steel and concrete lined tunnel outlet 550 feet long. From there a new 68 inch pipeline followed the old aqueduct to Morang.49 Fluoridation of the water commenced in 1976-77.50 A water treatment plant to filter and chlorinate the water was established in 1994. In 1999-2000 the dam wall was strengthened. This required the relocation of the old valve house a few metres to the west of its original site.51

46 Gibbs, pp 34-7. 47 Seeger, p.40, Gibbs, George A., Water Supply and Sewerage Systems of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne, 1925, pp 34-6. 48 Victorian Year Book, 1973, p.1070; Seeger, p.46. 49 MMBW Annual Report, 1960-61 50 MMBW Annual Report, 1977. 51 Dingle and Doyle, pp 110-12.

20 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

As new larger systems were built to keep up with metropolitan expansion, Yan Yean Reservoir’s share of the Melbourne’s water supply diminished, contributing only three percent in 2005. Nevertheless it remains a valuable holding storage for water from the Plenty catchment and surplus water from other systems.52 The original Yan Yean system, including the pipe reserve to Melbourne via Preston Reservoir, has been modified and expanded, however, it remains an integral part of the overall network of water supply systems for Melbourne.

1.6 Role in Melbourne’s development The provision of a water supply meant, initially that Melbourne’s streets could be cleaned and drains flushed. The high pressure water service could be used to power hydraulic lifts in multi-storey buildings, and to extinguish fires quickly. It also had an impact upon the development of Melbourne’s public gardens in terms of opening up new possibilities of the range of plants that could be grown within the city, and also allowed more elaborate fountains to be erected. In 1863, Melbourne’s first public drinking fountain was relocated from the city streets to the Carlton Gardens.53 Yan Yean became synonymous with water supply, as suburban Melbourne spread during the boom years following the gold rushes. A feature of Melbourne’s suburban landscape was, and still is, its domestic gardens. William Davidson told the Sanitary Commission in 1889 that: Melbourne is built differently to any town at home, in that the whole settlement is on allotments with gardens. I think the fact that Melbourne is a city of gardens accounts for the big consumption of water; and it is quite clear to me we are getting into trouble because it has been such a dry winter and spring; we have to keep the gardens in order … 54 It was only possible for Melbourne to become a city of gardens because it was so liberally supplied with water from the Yan Yean system during the years of suburban expansion that followed its construction. Gardeners could not rely on Melbourne’s unpredictable rainfall to keep in order the “smooth sward of lawn, high hedge and well tended flower-bed”- thirsty exotic plants that became so much a part of the suburban landscape.55 Melbourne’s garden culture, once established, placed big demands on its water supply. Keating notes that in 1983, 38 percent of Melbourne’s water consumption was used on the garden. This was during a drought when severe water restrictions were imposed.56 The need to “keep our gardens in order” has largely driven the perpetual search for more water resources. An early effect of the new water supply system could be seen in the industrial sector. Industries that relied on water for their processing operations could begin to move away from the Yarra River, although this shift took some decades to complete. Preston’s development as an industrial suburb began soon after the opening of the Yan Yean system. Although individual properties were not connected to the supply until the 1870s, water was available in standpipes along the pipe track. In 1862 a

52 Dingle and Doyle, pp 110-12. 53 Register of the National Estate, file 2/11/033/0235, Royal Exhibition Building National Historic Place, Carlton, Vic 54 Dingle, Tony and Rasmussen, Carolyn, Vital Connections: Melbourne and its Board of Works1891-1991, Ringwood, 1991, p.29. 55 Davison, Graeme, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, Carlton, 1978 pp 175-6. 56 Keating, Jenny, The Drought Walked Through: A history of water shortage in Victoria, Melbourne, 1992, p.12.

21 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

bacon factory was opened near the pipeline at Preston, and three tanneries followed soon after. A 1907 map of Preston shows six factories - bacon processors and tanneries close to the pipe track, with several other factories nearby.57 The provision of running water had its down-side during the first 40 years of the Yan Yean system’s operations, because Melbourne was as yet unsewered. With each resident using up to 50 gallons per day, the waste water had to be discharged somewhere, and it ended up in the streets and drains, where it contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as typhoid, and to the nickname “Smellbourne” that was attached to the city before the MMBW’s sewerage system was connected in 1897. The provision of abundant Yan Yean water was soon taken for granted by Melburnians, whose per capita demand for water continued to increase while the population grew and the city expanded. For those responsible for satisfying these demands, the task of expanding and improving the supply systems throughout the sprawling metropolis has continued to this day.

1.7 Developing other water supply systems

1.7.1 Maroondah and O’Shannassy Systems The Water Supply Board appointed in 1872 to investigate ways of increasing Melbourne’s water supply recommended that future supplies be brought from Watts River in the Yarra watershed, where rainfall was higher than the Plenty watershed. The government subsequently reserved the land in the watershed of the Watts and Little rivers,58 however almost two decades passed before the first stage of the Maroondah system came into service. In the late 1880s work began on the construction of a weir across the Watts River near Healesville, and 41 miles of aqueduct, tunnels and syphons to bring 25 million gallons of water per day across to the Preston Reservoir. The Maroondah Aqueduct joined the Yan Yean pipeline at the Junction Basin a little to the north of the reservoir. Completed in 1891, the Maroondah system augmented the Yan Yean system’s supply in the winter, when stream flows were high, enabling Yan Yean Reservoir to fill, ready for summer use.59

Expansion of Melbourne’s water supply systems ceased during the 1890s, when the city’s growth was dramatically curtailed by the economic collapse early in the decade. The newly formed sewerage and water supply authority, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, generally known as MMBW, concentrated its efforts on providing Melbourne with an urgently needed sewerage system. However, following a severe drought from 1895 to 1902, renewed efforts were made to increase Melbourne’s water supply. Although a storage dam in the Maroondah catchment was considered, it was decided that a new supply system from the O’Shannassy River, another tributary of the Yarra, would be cheaper and more effective.60

57 Carroll, Brian and Rule, Ian, Preston: An Illustrated History, 1985 58 Dingle and Doyle, p.65. Dingle and Rasmussen, p.116. 59 Dingle and Doyle, p. 85; Dingle and Rasmussen, p.114. 60 Dingle and Rasmussen, p.116-18.

22 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

Work began on the O’Shannassy scheme, the first of the MMBW’s water supply systems, in 1910. The works consisted of a weir across the O’Shannassy River and almost 49 miles of channels and pipes to a new service reservoir at Surrey Hills. This system, completed in 1914, served the fast growing eastern suburbs, some of which had suffered water shortages because of their height or their distance from the Yan Yean system.61 Another drought in 1914-15 highlighted the need for increased water storage capacity to carry the city through dry years. The MMBW commenced preliminary work on the Maroondah Reservoir in 1917, but due to war-time shortages, construction on the dam did not commence until 1920. Various factors, including industrial conflict, delayed its completion until 1927. At the same time the capacity of the aqueduct was enlarged by raising the walls and duplicating the syphons.62 In 1920 a start was made on the smaller O’Shannassy Reservoir, but it was not completed until 1928. This dam was designed to control the stream flow in times of heavy rain, with the water released into the system when needed.63 Construction of the much larger Silvan Reservoir commenced in 1927, and when completed in 1932 it stored water from the O’Shannassy system. Silvan increased Melbourne’s water storage capacity by seventy five percent. Today the combined capacity of O’Shannassy, Maroondah and Sylvan reservoirs is 104,500 megalitres, compared with Yan Yean Reservoir’s capacity of 30,000 megalitres.64

1.7.2 Upper Yarra, Thomson, Sugarloaf and other storages Davidson had first suggested reservation of the Upper Yarra catchment in 1888. In 1929, with an eye to Melbourne’s future needs, the MMBW proposed to build a large reservoir in the catchment, but construction was delayed until after the Second World War. By the time work began on the Upper Yarra system in 1949, advances in engineering technology enabled the creation of a much larger and higher dam. During construction it was decided to lay pipes rather than building an aqueduct, which was more costly and more susceptible to pollution.65 A service reservoir at Mitcham was the terminus of both the Upper Yarra and Maroondah systems, and served the high eastern suburbs. Preston, being of lower elevation, was able to receive Upper Yarra water via a 46 inch main from Mitcham.66 The Upper Yarra dam was completed in 1957, in time to celebrate the Yan Yean system’s centenary. It brought Melbourne’s water storage capacity to 65,452 million gallons, ten times the capacity of 1891. It also exhausted the capacity of the Yarra catchment as a supplier of water for Melbourne.67 In 1962 the MMBW developed a plan for increasing Melbourne’s water supplies to serve a predicted population of 5 million by the year 2000. This figure, based on the growth of the post-war boom years, turned out to be an over-estimation. The plan included the diversion of the Big River, a north-flowing tributary of the

61 Ibid., pp 119-20. 62 Ibid., pp 120-2, 132-3; A Century of Water Supply: Yan Yean Reservoir 1857, Upper Yarra Reservoir 1957, Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne, 1957, p.13. 63 Dingle and Rasmussen, pp 134-5. 64 Ibid., pp 136-40; www.melbournewater.com.au 65 Victorian Year Book, 1973, p.211; A Century of Water Supply, pp 16 & 20; Dingle and Rasmussen, pp 218-9 66 A Century of Water Supply, p.20. 67 Victorian Year Book, 1973, p.211; A Century of Water Supply, p.20.

23 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

Goulburn River, and the diversion of the Thomson River in Gippsland. The proposal for the Big River was quickly overruled by the Liberal Government, anxious to keep the support of the Country Party, when Premier Bolte declared that not “one drop” of water from north of the divide would be diverted to Melbourne. Similar concerns from rural interests were expressed on the use of the Thomson River, but only small quantities of its waters were used for irrigation in Gippsland, the rest “flowing unused into the sea”. With the onset of drought in 1967, the government approved the proposal to use water from the Thomson River.68 The Thomson scheme began with the construction of 33 kilometres of diversion tunnels under the ranges to the Upper Yarra Reservoir, completed in 1973. During the 1970s the government accepted the MMBW’s recommended policy of providing for storage of three years’ supply, rather than that one year’s supply. This would involve the construction of reservoirs on the Thomson River and two on the Lower Yarra, near Warrandyte. The idea of flooding the Lower Yarra Valley was opposed by the burgeoning environment conservation movement in the 1970s, and the proposed Watson’s Creek dam was abandoned. A compromise solution was a dam on the Sugarloaf Creek at Christmas Hills, completed in 1981. The dam was filled with water pumped from the Yarra, which, because it flowed through inhabited areas, required treatment.69 Construction of the Thomson Dam, which was to serve part of Gippsland and the Mornington Peninsula as well as Melbourne, commenced in 1976 and was completed in 1983. With a total capacity of 1,068,000 megalitres the dam supplies 60% of Melbourne’s reservoir capacity in 2006.70 During the 1970s two off-stream storage reservoirs were built to maintain supplies in the suburbs. The small Greenvale Reservoir, completed in 1971 to serve the northern suburbs, received water by pipeline from Silvan and Yan Yean. The much larger Cardinia Reservoir, completed in 1973, stored water from the Yarra’s winter flow, via Silvan, for summer use.71

68 Dingle and Rasmussen, p.264; Keating, p.160-65. 69 Dingle and Rasmussen, p. 280-3. 70 www.melbournewater.com.au 71 Dingle and Rasmussen, pp 275, 278.

24 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

2 MANAGING THE WATER SUPPLY

2.1 Introduction The oversight or governance of Melbourne’s water supply has been the responsibility of four different bodies over its 150 year history. Day to day management involved a large number of loyal workers, headed by caretakers who resided at each of the reservoirs.

2.2 Governance Melbourne’s early water supply from the Yarra River was provided by private entrepreneurs and companies, along the lines of the British model of the early nineteenth century. By the middle of the century British city corporations were beginning to take on the responsibility for the larger schemes necessary to serve the growing industrial towns.72 The Melbourne Town Council was prepared to follow this trend, but lacking the necessary finance, delayed making any decision, as noted in the previous chapter. When Victoria became a separate colony the new government took the matter in hand and appointed a Commission of Sewers and Water Supply. The Commission was responsible for the establishment and management of the system until 1860, when, because of the problems with water quality, the government took direct control through the Board of Land and Works. From 1862 to 1891 Melbourne’s water supply was administered by the Water Supply Branch of the Public Works Department, often referred to as the Water Supply Department. Only after forty years of colonial government control was the responsibility for water supply was handed over to municipal authority in the form of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works. In 1891 the newly formed Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) took control of Melbourne’s water supply, and continued as the responsible authority for a century. The MMBW was a body of Commissioners representing all the metropolitan municipalities, of which they were elected councillors. The Board was also responsible for establishing and maintaining Melbourne’s sewerage system, and later took on other responsibilities such as town planning. During its century of existence, the MMBW greatly expanded Melbourne’s water supply systems in a continuous effort to keep up with Melbourne’s metropolitan expansion and increasing per capita water consumption. On the abolition of the MMBW in 1991 the publicly owned corporation, Melbourne Water, took over responsibility for Melbourne's water supply, managing the catchments and infrastructure for storage and supply, while three retail water companies were formed to operate the reticulation networks and distribute water to consumers in three metropolitan regions.

2.3 Maintenance The day-to-day management and maintenance of the Yan Yean system was the responsibility of the Resident Inspector, who lived in the house built for the Resident Engineer, Charles Taylor, at the time of the Yan Yean Reservoir’s construction. Improvements were made to the house in 1901. The longest serving Inspector, or Caretaker, as he was called later, was John Wilson who held the

72 Bruce, pp 552-3.

25 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

position for almost 30 years. He was an engineer and contractor who lived in the Yan Yean district and worked for Taylor during the early years of the water works. He supervised the construction of the aqueduct to the Pipehead Reservoir in 1874-5 prior to his appointment as Resident Inspector in 1875. Wilson’s responsibilities included the works between Yan Yean and Preston and the Maroondah works from Preston to the Black’s Spur. Wilson was succeeded in the position by his son George, who also had a long career with the waterworks. George was caretaker at Preston before he took over as caretaker at Yan Yean in 1907. The Caretaker’s House was enlarged after George’s term finished in 1923.73 Figure 5 Caretaker’s Cottage at Yan Yean Reservoir, 1978 (State Library of Victoria, Image number: jc018122)

The Wilsons typify the family tradition of working on the Yan Yean system. Dingle and Doyle note that the reservoir provided employment for many local people over several generations, so that there was a strong link between community and water works, and a “strong sense of camaraderie and solidarity” amongst the workers who maintained the reservoir. Theirs was a largely self-contained operation and they shared a sense of common identity and loyalty to each other and to Yan Yean. They were proud of their water, and claimed it as amongst the best drinking water in the world.74 The maintenance program was carried out with “military precision” under a “strictly hierarchical regime” with the caretaker at the top. At one stage the channels were even scrubbed by hand, until Wilson invented a mechanical channel cleaner. This tradition of maintenance continued into the 1960s, when 30 men worked at Yan Yean and 20 worked at Wallaby Creek.75 Accommodation was also provided for a resident caretaker and workers at Preston, Wallaby Creek and Toorourrong.

73 The Operations of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works: Water Supply & Sewerage Schemes: Special edition of the Building, Engineering and Mining Journal, 1905, p.31; MMBW Annual Report, 1901, p.120; Dingle and Doyle, p.101; Edwards, p.34. 74 Dingle and Doyle, pp 106-7. 75 Ibid., pp 100-1.

26 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

The Preston caretaker’s residence was built in 1865, following the completion of the reservoir. Some details of the caretaker’s duties are discussed in chapter 4. Living and office accommodation was built at Wallaby Creek during construction of the system in the early 1880s. This slab cottage with a shingle roof was used as a caretaker’s cottage on completion of the scheme. A water supply was brought from a small weir at Nimmo Falls via an iron pipeline. By 1905 there were two “roomy, well built cottages” on the site, known as “The Hospice”. One cottage had accommodation for fourteen people, presumably the men who worked on the channels. The second cottage had the caretaker’s quarters, and a “roomy dining hall” for accommodating MMBW Commissioners and official visitors. The buildings were sewered.76 In 1928-9 the MMBW undertook a program of improvements to caretakers’ residences, including Wallaby Creek. New sleeping quarters were added and a kitchen was built in 1930 at Wallaby Creek. Quarters were also provided for a new Superintendent of Forests appointed in 1929. In the same year a small hydro- electric system was connected to the water supply. Around this time the Board began employing a housekeeper, and later casual housemaids, were to look after visitors. Weekend holidays at Wallaby Creek “Quarters” later known as the “Lodge” were privileges enjoyed by MMBW Commissioners.77 There were 56 Commissioners prior to 1978, when the MMBW was restructured to a seven- member board. The garden surrounding the “Quarters” is discussed in chapter 5. The brick residence at Toorourrong Reservoir was built in 1928-9 as part of the Board’s program of improving caretakers’ quarters.78

76 Register of the National Estate, file 2/14/054/0020; Wallaby Creek Weir, Aqueduct and Associated Sites, Kinglake, Vic.; MMBW, 1905, p.36. 77 Dingle and Doyle, pp 104, 109; Register of the National Estate, file 2/14/054/0020; MMBW Annual Report for year ended 30 June 1929, p.7. 78 MMBW Annual Report 1929, p.7.

27

YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

3 ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS

3.1 Introduction The Yan Yean system was innovative as an urban supply that brought water from afar by gravity and used a large storage reservoir. At the time of its construction, the Yan Yean system was compared with New York’s Croton Waterworks, a gravitational system that brought water 35 miles by aqueduct to Manhattan.79 It was unusual then for urban water supplies to be brought from so far out of town. The construction of large storage reservoirs was also unusual before the second half of the nineteenth century. As Bruce points out, “few towns are so favourably placed that they can be supplied with water throughout their area without the aid of pumps”.80 Melbourne was such a town. The whole Yan Yean water supply system was designed to use only the force of gravity to deliver water to users. That was the brilliant simplicity of Blackburn’s scheme. Although the engineering and construction technology employed was fairly conventional for the time it was the first time it had been employed in Australia. A major engineering challenge was the regulation of pressure on the long journey of the water from source to consumer, which Jackson’s specially designed valves failed to address. A service reservoir at Preston provided the solution. Other service reservoirs were added to maintain suburban supplies, as Melbourne expanded and demand increased. The ongoing task of upgrading and increasing the capacity of the pipeline was accompanied by the adoption of new developments in pipe technology from elsewhere. This chapter ends with an exploration of other nineteenth century urban water supply systems in Australia, providing some context in which to appreciate Yan Yean’s place in the nation’s water supply and engineering history.

Facing page: c.1908 MMBW map showing the Yan Yean system (and Maroondah aqueduct)

3.2 The reservoirs

3.2.1 Yan Yean Reservoir The Yan Yean reservoir, one of the largest in the world at the time, was formed by the construction of an earthen embankment between two small hills to enclose the natural basin of Ryder’s Swamp. The dam was designed by Jackson according to standard British practice for the mid-nineteenth century. The 3,324-foot (almost a kilometre long) embankment was 30 feet (9 metres) high, 17 feet (5 metres) wide at the top, and 167 feet (51 metres) wide at its base, with an inside or upstream slope of 3-1 and a steeper 2-1 outside, or downstream, slope. The embankment was made with a core of puddle clay, embedded in a trench and built up in 9 inch (23-centimetre) layers. Each layer was worked into the one below to provide an impervious centre for the wall. The clay was dug from the site, soaked in water and kneaded by the workmen’s feet to make it watertight. It was vital that the core be watertight to prevent any leakage, which could undermine the structure and cause the dam to fail. Jackson was adamant that the puddle core be constructed strictly according to his specifications. He had had seen the destruction and tragedy

79 Kelly, William, Life in Victoria, London, 1859, vol.ll, p.40; Bruce, p.554. 80 Bruce, p.560.

29 VOLUME 2: HISTORY

resulting from the failure of the poorly constructed Bilberry Dam in England in 1852. The wall was built up around the puddle core with earth excavated from the site, with the more stony material on the outer side. The inner side was then faced with bluestone. The off-stream reservoir took in water from the Plenty River flowing through gates into a bluestone-lined canal, then through a tunnel into the reservoir. As noted in chapter 1, these gates were closed off to exclude the polluted water from the western branch after the Clearwater Channel from Toorourrong came into use in 1886. The Yan Yean Reservoir when full held 6,400 million gallons (30,000 megalitres), which was then two to three years’ supply for Melbourne.81 The square bluestone outlet tower had three 33 inch diameter cast iron inlet pipes that allowed water to be drawn from the reservoir at various depths. Two 33 inch outlet pipes passed through the embankment to the octagonal bluestone valve house outside the embankment and into the 30 inch pipe that carried the water to Morang. The two pipes through the embankment caused Jackson some concern when they fractured due to the weight of the earthworks. Such pipes were usually run through a tunnel, but at Yan Yean they were put through the embankment as an economy measure. The pipes were repaired by inserting a sleeve of boiler-plate, and, despite Jackson’s anxiety about the matter, the repair was still holding when the pipes were decommissioned in the 1960s. An 18 inch pipe also passed through the embankment into a channel that took water back into the Plenty River to maintain a supply to a couple of flour mills operating on the river downstream.82 Figure 6 The Yan Yean Reservoir, 1881, showing the outlet tower (main picture), valve house (upper right) and outlet basin (lower right) (State Library of Victoria, Image Number: mp009154)

81 Binnie, chapters 4 & 12; Dingle and Doyle, pp 23-5; The Operations of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works, 1905, p.34 82 Dingle and Doyle, pp 34-5.

30 YAN YEAN WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM CMP

3.2.2 Service Reservoirs A distribution or service reservoir had been included in Blackburn’s and Jackson’s original plans, but was not built, probably due to economic restraints. Instead Jackson designed two pressure regulating valves, one of which was installed north of Child’s Road at present day Mill Park, the other at the site of the proposed service or distribution reservoir at Preston (now at the southern end of Preston Reservoir No.1). Both bluestone valve houses survive. This was the first time such regulators were used on a large pipeline, but they proved to be useless in preventing pipes from bursting. The remedy for this and the problem of stagnation in the pipes, as outlined above, was to build a service reservoir on the pipeline between Yan Yean and Melbourne. This reservoir was built at Preston in 1864 using the same construction technology - puddle core earth embankment - as the Yan Yean Reservoir. To meet Melbourne’s increasing demands for water, several more service reservoirs were added in the suburbs prior to the end of the nineteenth century. Two were built at Essendon in the 1880s, both of puddle core earth bank construction. Essendon No.1 was the only circular reservoir in the system. The first massed concrete reservoir was built at Caulfield in 1883, followed by those at Kew and Surrey Hills. Early in the twentieth century several more concrete service reservoirs were built in the suburbs, including two at Preston. In 1909 Preston No.2 was constructed of reinforced concrete, a relatively new material for water storage. In 1913 Preston Reservoir No.3 was constructed using the more conventional massed concrete.83 The three Preston reservoirs demonstrate three types of reservoir technology over a fifty year period. Their history and role in Melbourne’s water supply system is discussed in more detail in chapter 4.

3.2.3 Toorourrong Reservoir The Toorourrong Reservoir is a smaller version of Yan Yean Reservoir, with a puddle clay core earthen embankment of 990 feet (298 metres) in length, across the eastern branch of the Plenty River. The reservoir has a capacity of 60 million gallons (273 megalitres) and was designed to allow the sediment to settle before the water enters the bluestone-lined Clearwater Channel on its way to Yan Yean. The reservoir was designed by William Thwaites, who had made the surveys of Mount Disappointment and recommended the Wallaby Creek scheme. Thwaites also designed the channels, the Cascades and associated works. John Wilson, the Resident Inspector at Yan Yean Reservoir, supervised the work. A feature of the Wallaby Creek system is the Cascades - the 228-metre artificial waterfall over which the water from Wallaby Creek Aqueduct drops to Jack’s Creek on its way to Toorourrong Reservoir. The staircase-like channel, designed to aerate the water, was cut out of soft schist rock, which was lined to prevent erosion. In the absence of sand for making concrete, a nearby granite outcrop was excavated and pitchers made to line the aqueduct.84

83 Gibbs p.37-8. 84 Dingle and Doyle, pp 78-9.

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3.3 Pipes, mains and aqueducts The original pipeline and mains used were generally of cast iron, and were designed to withstand a static head of 450 feet of water. But because of Yan Yean’s distance from Melbourne and height - 600 feet above sea level - pressure could build up to 600 static feet during times of minimum demand. In the early years burst mains were a serious problem. Jackson had designed a pressure regulator to prevent this, however, it was not successful. Jackson also installed safety valves, which he insisted be left partly open. The situation was remedied by the construction of the service reservoir at Preston, which enabled the pressure to be broken. In 1886 a process of coating large iron pipes with asphalt to prevent chemical reactions with the water was introduced. This technology was brought from California by Alfred Deakin, Commissioner of Water Supply in Victoria (later Prime Minister of Australia). In the same year the first wrought iron main, of 30 inches, was used for part of the fifth main, from Preston Reservoir to Oakover Road, Preston. This was the last main to be laid along the original Yan Yean system pipe reserve. Wrought iron was used for the duplicate main from Morang to Preston (except for the first half mile, which was cast iron) in 1887. Another innovation adopted in the 1890s was Ferguson’s patent spiral joint used in the 21 inch main between Surrey Hills and Oakleigh (not actually part of the Yan Yean system). The single riveted spiral seam, instead of the usual double seam, allowed thinner plates to be used in making the pipes.85 When the MMBW began a program of repairing the old wrought iron pipes in the Morang-Preston main in 1920, many of the pipes were found to be in good condition, and only needed minor repairs, re-coating and re-laying. However, one mile of the main was replaced with reinforced concrete pipes in that year, and this process continued in 1921.86 In 1928 continuous welded steel pipes were introduced to Melbourne and a new 54 inch central main laid. The 75 inch steel outlet main at Preston Reservoir was Melbourne’s largest steel main at the time.87 To increase the discharge of water from Yan Yean Reservoir and into the suburban pipes, the sides of the Morang Aqueduct were raised during 1918 and 1919. By the 1960s suburban growth was reaching beyond Preston into the countryside to the north, where open channels ran the risk of pollution from increased human activity. The development of large diameter pipes made a pipeline the safe and efficient alterative to the aqueduct for water delivery. In 1960-61 the MMBW replaced the Morang Aqueduct with enamel-lined steel pipes. Parts of the stone aqueduct were demolished, while other parts, such as the section near the Plenty River Flume at Mernda, were filled in. According to plant operator Mr Dino Eramo, who commenced employment with the MMBW in 1960, except where ‘manholes’ (i.e. jointing pits at the pipe butts) necessitated demolition of the stonework using explosives, the original aqueduct was backfilled and left in-situ.88 The new 68 inch pipeline followed the aqueduct route from Yan Yean to the Plenty River, where the pipeline was taken under the stream-bed. From McArthur’s Lane the pipeline branched into two 54 inch mains, one running to Somerton, and the other

85 Gibbs, 1925, pp 34-37. 86 MMBW Annual Report, 1920, 1921. 87 MMBW Annual Report, 1928. 88 Hewitt, Geoff, Yan Yean pipe track report, unpublished report for Context Pty Ltd & Melbourne Water, 2003, p.6

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following the aqueduct to Preston. This gave greater flows for high summer demands in the northern and western suburbs.89 The task of replacing the Maroondah Aqueduct with pipes commenced in 1966, starting from the Junction Basin at Preston. This took place in several stages until its completion in 1978.90

3.4 Other Australian urban water supply systems The reservoir at Yan Yean was not only Australia’s first, it was also by far the largest until it was surpassed in capacity by Sydney’s Prospect Reservoir built in 1888. It was also one of the first two schemes in Australia (the other being Launceston, as discussed below) to use gravity fed water sourced from outside the town. This innovation was to be adopted by most other major urban centres in Australia and during the following decades several water supply systems using remote, gravity fed water were designed and constructed, some by people such as Joseph Brady who originally had worked on the Yan Yean project. Some of the comparable systems are outlined below.

3.4.1 Launceston and Hobart Launceston’s water supply scheme, now known as the Distillery Creek system, was completed in 1857, the same year that the Yan Yean system came into operation. Although James Blackburn has been credited with designing a scheme for Launceston (see chapter 1) his role in the Distillery Creek system is not clear, because he was already in Melbourne when the plans were drawn up in 1852. He may well have been responsible for developing the concept plan before he moved to Victoria, because it featured gravity fed system that sourced water from outside the town. A weir was constructed across the St Patrick’s River at Nunamara, about 20 kilometres from Launceston, then the water was diverted by a channel and tunnel to Distillery Creek and stored in a small dam. Unlike Yan Yean, the scheme did not include a large storage reservoir.91 It should be remembered, however, that the Yan Yean Reservoir was an afterthought to Blackburn’s original concept. There were two important factors that influenced Blackburn’s decision to provide the reservoir at Yan Yean - firstly the rapid growth of Melbourne that accompanied the gold rushes, and secondly the possibility of drought. Tasmania, with its wetter climate and slower population growth presumably had less need of large water storage capacity. The first stage of Hobart’s water supply system, Lower Reservoir built in 1861, is believed to be Australia’s second oldest reservoir. The Upper Reservoir was added to Hobart’s scheme in 1888. Water was channelled from Bower Creek at Fern Tree to the Upper and Lower Reservoirs via stone aqueducts.92

3.4.2 Bendigo The usual practice of establishing a town near a water source was not followed at Bendigo, which took shape around the diggings in the early 1850s. In the rush for wealth the presence of gold rather than water determined Bendigo’s site, thus lack of

89 MMBW Annual Report, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1961. 90 MMBW Annual Report, 1966 - 1978. 91 Dept of Primary Industries and Water Tasmania website: www.dpiw.tas.gov.au; Boughton, Walter, (ed.) A Century of Water Resources Development in Australia, 1900-1999, Barton, 1999, pp 83, 108. 92 Dept of Primary Industries and Water Tasmania website: www.dpiw.tas.gov.au

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water, an essential commodity for mining, was a major concern. In 1858 the Bendigo Waterworks Company commenced building Victoria’s first non- metropolitan water supply system. The works, which included the 309 megalitre Big Hill Reservoir, supplied Bendigo’s domestic and mining needs. The system soon proved inadequate, and in 1862 Parliament appointed a Select Committee to investigate a solution. Joseph Brady, the company’s engineer, who had also worked on the Yan Yean system, proposed bringing water from the Coliban River by gravity to supply Bendigo and Castlemaine. Brady far-sightedly suggested a scheme that would be capable of supporting agriculture in the future as well as mining. The Coliban scheme was therefore planned to supply both urban and rural consumers. The works, completed in 1877, featured a reservoir at Malmsbury with a capacity of 2,456 million gallons (11,000 megalitres). Water was carried from Malmsbury by the 64 mile (102 km) long Coliban Main Channel. The works included five major tunnels and several small holding reservoirs. Like the Yan Yean system, the Coliban system has been enlarged and extended to serve increasing requirements for town supply, and also for irrigation. Malmsbury Reservoir was enlarged in 1887, the Upper Coliban Reservoir was built near Kyneton in 1902 and the Lauriston Reservoir was built in 1941. Most of the original works, including the channel, are still in use.93

3.4.3 Brisbane Brady, on the recommendation of the Victorian government, was also involved in building Brisbane’s water supply scheme from 1865. Brisbane’s first water supply was from a creek that ran through the town. As was usually the case, the creek became polluted as the town grew. In 1861 the town’s population was only 6051, however, a large population increase was expected and the Brisbane Council’s Water Committee sought “a plan of a permanent nature and capable of extension”. The Committee hired Charles Oldham94, who had modified Blackburn’s Yan Yean scheme, to assist in finding a suitable supply that could be delivered by gravity. Oldham recommended the construction of a dam on Enoggera Creek, with the capacity to provide a daily per capita ration of 20 gallons. The Enoggera Dam was constructed with a conventional puddle-clay core earth embankment, and Brady was engaged to supervise the contract construction of the dam and which was completed in only two years from 1864 to 1866. The growth of Brisbane’s population and rate of consumption was such that the Enoggera system soon required extending. The Gold Creek dam was added in 1886.95

3.4.4 Adelaide Adelaide residents made use of ground water from an aquifer beneath the town, until it became polluted by sewage. In 1860 Thorndale Park Reservoir was built, the first of a series of small off-stream reservoir in the Mt Lofty Ranges. The 16,390 megalitre Millbrook Reservoir, then Adelaide’s largest, was built in 1918.96

93 Russell, Geoff, “Bringing Water & Wastewater services to Central Victoria”, Coliban Water website: www.coliban.com.au. 94 Note: Powell refers to Thomas Oldham 95 Powell, J.M. Plains of Promise Rivers of Destiny: Water Management and the Development of Queensland 1824 to 1990, Bowen Hills, 1992, pp 30-3; Boughton, p.3. 96 Boughton, pp 111-3.

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3.4.5 Sydney Perhaps the most comparable scheme to the Yan Yean system in terms of its scale, design and features is the Upper Nepean Scheme at Sydney. Until the 1880s Sydney continued to rely on local supplies, rather than adopting the new practice of bringing water from distant mountain streams. Sydney’s early sources of water included the Tank Stream, Busby’s Bore, and the Botany Swamps. Such systems involved small storage reservoirs, including Crown Street Reservoir, and relied on pumping plants. All were “quick short term solutions”. The Botany Swamps scheme appears to have been adopted in response to drought in 1849 and the sudden increase in population following the discovery of gold at Bathurst in 1851.97 A scheme to harvest the rainfall from the South Coast Range was first proposed in the late 1860s, however, it was a decade before the proposal - known as the Upper Nepean Scheme - was adopted as the option with best capacity for further development and the cheapest rate of supply. The supply originated in country that was considered “sterile and consequently unsuitable for agricultural and pastoral pursuits”, which meant that the water was pollution free. The Upper Nepean catchment was closed from the beginning, apart from some land already taken for other uses, however, the catchment boundaries were ill defined and required adjustment later.98 The Upper Nepean Scheme involved a series of weirs on several small streams to divert water via tunnels and canals to a reservoir at Prospect. Prospect Reservoir was constructed with the traditional puddle-clay core earth embankment and had a capacity of 50,200 megalitres, almost double that of Yan Yean Reservoir. Water was drawn off via an underground tunnel rather than through the embankment. An eight kilometre canal carried the water to a pipehead basin at Guildford. The tunnels and canals were cut into the sandstone and strengthened in some places with concrete. The existing reservoir at Crown Street was used as a service reservoir. The Upper Nepean Scheme, completed in 1888, enabled most of Sydney to be supplied by gravitation, but pumps were needed for some of the higher areas of the city. Several on-stream masonry dams were added to the system in the first half of the twentieth century.99

97 Boughton, p.31; Henry, p.50. 98 Henry, pp 51-68. 99 Ibid, pp 56-74.

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Figure 7 Cross section of Preston Reservoir No. 1 (Ritchie, 1921-:5)

Figure 8 Preston Reservoir No. 1 under construction (Ritchie, 1921-:5)

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4 THE PRESTON RESERVOIRS

4.1 Introduction Each of the three Preston reservoirs was constructed using different technologies. Preston Reservoir No.1 is an earth embankment construction. The relatively new technology of reinforced concrete was used for Preston No.2, but for Preston No.3 the MMBW reverted to conventional mass concrete. The existence and use of these three reservoirs, side by side, demonstrates three types of reservoir technology over a fifty year period.

4.2 Preston Reservoir No. 1 Although a service reservoir was an integral part of Blackburn’s and Jackson’s original plans, it was not built as part of the initial Yan Yean water supply project, but added later to address the problems of pressure and stagnation in the pipes, as outlined in chapter 3. Preston, at a suitable elevation and distance from Melbourne on the pipe track between Yan Yean and Melbourne, was chosen as the site for the city’s first service reservoir. The work commenced in July 1863, with an expected completion date of 30 November. However, owing to delays through wet weather, it was not completed until the latter part of 1864. The reservoir was constructed by excavation and embankment, using the same construction techniques as for the dam at Yan Yean. The best clay excavated from the site was used for the puddle core of the four earth embankments that made up the sides. The reservoir was lined with bluestone pitchers bedded in gravel and set in cement mortar. Turf cut from the site was then placed over the outer surface of the embankments. The contractor was Alexander Cooper, of Fitzroy, who employed an average of 50 men per day - with sometimes up to 90 men and 30 horses. Thomas Catanach was the foreman of works. Additional workers were employed quarrying and dressing the bluestone pitchers, presumably using nearby basalt deposits. In October 1863 a man was killed in an accident at the works when part of a cutting collapsed onto him.100

With a depth of 21 feet (6.4 metres) the reservoir’s capacity was 16 million gallons (72.8 megalitres) - sufficient to supply Melbourne for three days at that time. The 22-foot (6.7 metre) wide by-wash directed excess water via a pitched channel into the Darebin Creek. At the time of its completion the reservoir had two inlets, which could also be used as outlets. One was the 22 inch main from Yan Yean at the northern end of the reservoir, which was also used as a scour. The other outlet, a 33 inch pipe near the south-west angle, was used as a means of relieving pressure on the main by discharging surplus water into the reservoir.101 An early photograph shows what appears to be a small outlet tower near the southern bank on the western side, and is probably the outlet shown on MMBW Plan of Preston Reservoir dated 1907. The 24 inch cast iron main, laid from Preston to Collingwood in 1869 exits the reservoir from near the south west corner.102

100 Plans, contract and specifications for Preston Reservoir No.1, VPRS 8609/P28 Unit 6. 101 MMBW, 1905, p.37. 102 Photo in Gibbs, 1925; MMBW Plan of Preston Reservoir, office copy dated 15.10.07, VPRS 8069/P35, Unit 46.

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Preston Reservoir was built as a key part of the Yan Yean distribution system, a system that continued to expand to meet Melbourne’s growing demand for water delivery. Preston was Melbourne’s only service reservoir until 1881, when a small circular reservoir was built at Essendon. Previously, in 1876, a small pipehead reservoir had been built at Morang, where the aqueduct from Yan Yean terminated. Before the end of the nineteenth century a second service reservoir was built at Essendon, plus three others - in Caulfield, Surrey Hills and Kew. The two Essendon reservoirs, like those at Preston and Morang, were built using puddle core earth banks lined with bluestone pitchers. Of these four earth service reservoirs, only the Preston Reservoir is now extant. The reservoirs at Caulfield, Surrey Hills and Kew were constructed from massed concrete.103 A caretaker’s cottage was built at Preston in 1865. George Wilson was caretaker before he took over his father’s position as caretaker at Yan Yean in 1907. One of the caretaker’s duties was to ensure that the reservoir did not fill above 17 feet 3 inches each night. An electric float inside the northern slope of the reservoir rang an alarm when that level was reached, usually between 3.00 and 6.00 am. The caretaker would have to get out of bed and direct the overflow over the spillway into the Darebin Creek.104 The Preston office of the MMBW was built next to the house in 1900. Improvements and additions were made to the living quarters around the same time.105 When the Maroondah system was opened in 1891 the aqueduct terminated at the Junction Basin in Cheddar Road, Preston. The water was piped to Preston Reservoir via a 53 inch wrought iron main, entering through the north bank half way between the by-wash and the east bank. This was the only outlet for Maroondah water until 1900, when the High Street main (laid in 1894) was extended north from the southern end of the reservoir and connected with the 53 inch main at the north of the reservoir. This enabled Maroondah water to bypass Preston Reservoir.106

There were problems with water quality from the Maroondah system, which contained large amounts of vegetable matter. The water was originally passed through bar gratings which screened out “only the very roughest material in suspension”. Early in the twentieth century new screens “of the finest mesh used for water supply purposes” were installed at Preston, presumably at the 54 inch outlet shown on the 1907 plan. This was still not satisfactory, because fine vegetable detritus held in suspension was able to pass through the screens and into consumption. One remedy proposed for this was another reservoir divided into three compartments to be used as settling ponds, however, this did not eventuate (see below). Instead, a new screening chamber was designed in 1911. It was a hexagonal concrete structure with a balustrade of one inch gas piping on the top and gangway. This presumably connected to the 54 inch outlet.107 As shown in Figure 9, this structure can still be seen at the southern end of the reservoir.

103 Gibbs, 1925, pp 34-7. 104 MMBW, 1905, p.37. 105 Carroll, Brian & Rule, Ian, Preston: An Illustrated History, 1985, p.223; MMBW Chairman’s Report, 1899-1901, p.121. 106 MMBW, 1905, p.37; MMBW Chairman’s Report, 1899-1901, p.120. 107 W. Thwaites, Engineer in Chief, Memo 18 December 1906, in Reports Returns and Tables re Water Supply, VPRS 8609/P1 Unit 50, Item 18, p.11; MMBW Plan, Details of Screening Chamber at Preston Reservoir No.1, dated 29.5.1911, VPRS 8609/P35, Unit 45.

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Figure 9 Screening Chamber Preston Reservoir No.1 (Context, 2006)

4.3 Preston Reservoirs 2 & 3 As early as 1884, William Davidson, Engineer in Charge of Water Supply, pointed out the necessity for additional storage at Preston to supply the rapidly growing metropolis. However, instead of increasing storage at Preston, delivery was increased with the laying of the second Morang to Preston main, completed in 1887. Memories of the water famine caused by the breach of the Morang Aqueduct in 1878 were still fresh in Davidson’s mind, when in 1886 he reiterated the need for increased local storage at Preston. He urged the government to construct another reservoir with a 60 million gallon capacity at Preston, and recommended the purchase of a parcel of land 23 acres 1 rood 24 perches for this purpose. Although the land, on the eastern side of High Street, was subsequently purchased, building of the reservoir was delayed by the economic crisis of the 1890s.108 Melbourne’s six service reservoirs maintained local pressure for the metropolis, but by 1905 their combined storage capacity was only sufficient for one summer day’s supply. The accepted standard at the time was three days’ storage, which was the original capacity of the Preston Reservoir. In December 1906 the MMBW’s Engineer-in-Chief, William Thwaites, repeated Davidson’s advice that a 60 million gallon reservoir at Preston was urgently needed to keep up with daily storage requirements. He also recommended the construction of four more service reservoirs in other suburbs, which would, in combination with the new Preston reservoir, hold three days’ supply for Melbourne’s summer requirements. Thwaites suggested that a new reservoir at Preston was also required for settling purposes for the water from the Maroondah system, because the new screens (noted above) were not filtering suspended vegetable matter. Thwaites therefore recommended a large

108 Thwaites, Memo 18 December 1906, p.8.

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reservoir divided into three compartments of 20 million gallons each, which would address both settling and storage problems.109 Plans were drawn up for the new service reservoir at Preston. The design featured three compartments separated by puddle core banks with puddle core embankments surrounding the whole.110 However this design was never built. Thwaites, who had been responsible for the design of Essendon Reservoir No. 1 and Caulfield Reservoir in the 1880s, died in 1907. It is not know what deliberations followed, but perhaps his successor, Calder Oliver, preferred the more modern technology of concrete construction. By October 1907 plans had been drafted for two separate concrete reservoirs with a combined capacity of 50 million gallons.111 When, in early 1908, the MMBW advertised for tenders for Preston Reservoir No. 2, it asked for alternative quotes for concrete (i.e., plain or massed) and reinforced concrete. The advantage of using concrete over puddle-core earth reservoirs was that concrete embankments were thinner and thus required less land, an important consideration when suburban land had to be acquired for the purpose. Also the concrete floor was more effective in keeping water clean, and facilitated the cleaning out of silt. So far three of the suburban service reservoirs - Caulfield, Kew and Surrey Hills - had been constructed of massed concrete.112 Preston Reservoir No.2 was to be the first venture into reinforced concrete for reservoir construction in Melbourne’s water supply system. Since the turn of the century reinforced concrete had been used for a number of bridges, water tanks and other structures throughout Victoria. Most of these had been built by Victoria’s foremost exponent of reinforced concrete, the engineer John Monash, who later made his name as a military leader in World War I. Monash held the patent for the Monier system of reinforced concrete (one of many systems) and was virtually operating with a monopoly for the technology in Victoria, although there were by now a few competitors using different reinforcing systems. There had been considerable suspicion and prejudice against reinforced concrete amongst the engineering profession, and Monash had campaigned hard to have this new technology accepted, particularly by municipal councils, water boards and other providers of public infrastructure.113 The Board received ten tenders for Preston Reservoir No.2, including two for reinforced concrete. The lowest at £26,489 was that of Monash’s company, the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co., which was considerably lower than all the tenders for massed concrete. An advantage of reinforced concrete was that it required less concrete than massed concrete, thus saving on the cost of expensive cement. The Board’s Engineer in Chief, Calder Oliver, argued in favour of reinforced concrete, noting “numerous examples of this work” in Victoria and

109 Ibid., pp 8-11. 110 Ibid., pp 9-11; MMBW Plan of New Service Reservoir at Preston, undated, VPRS 8069/P35, Unit 31. 111 MMBW 1905, p.28; Gibbs, pp 37; MMBW Plan of Preston Reservoir, office copy dated 15.10.07, VPRS 8067/P35, Unit 46. 112 Serle, Geoffrey, John Monash: A Biography, Melbourne, 1982, p.165; Ritchie, E.G., “Service Reservoirs in the Melbourne Water Supply System”, Excerpts of Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, 1921-22, in VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 14, Item 17. 113 For information on Monash’s work in reinforced concrete construction see Serle, op. cit., also Alves, L., Holgate, A. Taplin, G., Monash Bridges: Typology Study of Reinforced concrete bridges in Victoria 1897-1917, Monash University, 1998 and Alan Holgate website: home.vicnet.net.au/~aholgate/jm/jm_intro.html.

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other places, and the fact that reinforced concrete structures had withstood the shock of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.114

Preston Reservoir No.2 with a capacity of 24.5 million gallons (111.5 megalitres), was completed in 1909. It measured 476 feet (166.6 m) by 516 feet (157.4 m) and 17 feet (5.2 m) deep. As shown in Figure 10, unlike earth and massed concrete reservoirs, the inner walls were perpendicular, with the outer walls sloping. They were constructed in vertical panels, rather than built up horizontally in courses like puddle core or massed concrete. This meant that the building up of the earth embankment behind the reinforced concrete wall could not proceed evenly as the wall was raised, resulting in more cracking of the concrete than usually occurred with massed concrete. Edgar Ritchie, the Board’s Engineer of Water Supply, later gave this as his reason for preferring massed concrete for service reservoirs.115 Figure 10 Cross section of Preston Reservoir No. 2 (As reproduced in Ritchie, 1921-2:8)

There was probably another reason for this preference. When Monash’s company won the contract the Board faced public criticism from Monash’s competitors that the proper competitive tendering process had not been followed. Oliver had to defend the decision to accept specifications provided by the tenderer, for what was then highly specialised work. According to Serle, Ritchie was hostile to reinforced concrete, and was dissatisfied over some minor faults in the completed reservoir. The Board took the Company to arbitration, however, Monash (who was a lawyer as well as an engineer) defended his case successfully.116 This experience probably deterred the Board’s engineers from dealing again with the leading reinforced

114 Engineer in Chief, Memo, 24 March 1908, VPRS 8609/P1 Unit 50, Item 26. 115 Ritchie, 1921-22, pp 5-6. I am indebted to Dr Alan Holgate, former Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Monash University, for clarifying the technical aspects of this type of construction. 116 Engineer in Chief, Memo 24 March, 1908; Serle, pp 165-7.

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concrete company, influencing their decision to revert to massed concrete for service reservoirs.

Figure 11 Preston Reservoir No.2 under construction, 1908-9 (PROV)

Figure 12 Construction of screening chamber Preston Reservoir No.2, 1908-9. Note similarity with the screening tower constructed two years later in Preston Reservoir No.1 shown in Figure 8 (PROV)

Preston Reservoir No.3, constructed of massed concrete, was completed in 1913. It measured 516 feet (157.5 m) by 502 feet (153.1 m), with a depth of 17 feet (5.2 m), and capacity of 26.3 million gallons (119.6 megalitres). The cost was £29,190. While the excavation was carried out in the usual way by horse-drawn ploughs and “monkey-tail” scoops, the earth was removed by large scoops drawn by cable between two portable steam engines. The earth was used to build up the embankment behind the concrete wall as the wall was raised. The reinforced concrete floor was four inches thick, compared with nine inches previously used on other massed concrete reservoirs. This was found to be less subject to cracking, and more economical in the use of cement.117

117 MMBW, ‘Notes on the Melbourne Water Supply’, 1902, p.13; Ritchie, pp 4-9.

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Figure 13 Cross-section of Preston Reservoir No. 3 (As reproduced in Ritchie, 1921-2:6)

4.4 Use of the Preston reservoirs and later developments Many more service reservoirs were built throughout the suburbs over time, however the three reservoirs at Preston retained an important role in the network as the terminus of the Yan Yean and Maroondah supplies. They served the low-lying suburbs, while the Mitcham Reservoir, as the terminus for the O’Shannassy and Upper Yarra supplies, served the higher eastern suburbs. However, water could be brought across from Mitcham to Preston when needed in the western suburbs. In 1928 the laying of new 54 inch steel mains to supply the western suburbs necessitated considerable works at Preston, including special castings and valves and a steel 75 inch outlet main within the reservoir boundaries.118 In 1950 it was decided to install a pumping scheme at various points in the suburban area to ease deficiencies of supplies during peak consumption times. A pump was installed at Preston in November 1951. The pumping of water from the service reservoir into the mains was seen as a ten year stop-gap measure until improved mains were laid.119 When the new Sugarloaf Reservoir came into operation a pipeline was brought to Preston where the inlet and control works were completed in 1980-81.120 The inlet is in the northern bank of Reservoir No 1. In the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century no covering was considered necessary for service reservoirs. A close thicket of trees and shrubs was planted around all the basin enclosures, which was believed to “arrest dust and other impurities that might otherwise be blown into the water”.121 Monterey Pines (P. radiata) were planted extensively around the Yan Yean Reservoir and along the

118 MMBW Annual Report, 1928, pp 7-8. 119 MMBW Annual Report, 1950, 1951, 1952. 120 MMBW Annual Report, 1981. 121 Ritchie, p.9.

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aqueducts in the 1880s (see chapter 5 below). Presumably the rows of mature Monterey Pines along three sides of Preston Reservoir No.1 were planted around the same time. Eventually suburban development in Preston, and increased motor traffic along High Street made it necessary to cover reservoirs Nos 2 and 3. Figure 14 Preston Reservoir No. 1 early twentieth century (note trees around perimeter) (Gibbs, 1925)

In 1989 a decision was made not to rehabilitate the 125-year-old Preston Reservoir No 1, and it was taken out of commission. It has since been used occasionally for flushing out mains.122

122 MMBW Annual Report, 1990; information provide by Melbourne Water personnel at Preston Reservoir June 2006.

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5 DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES

5.1 Introduction From the time of its completion the Yan Yean system was eulogised as a triumph of engineering within a natural picturesque setting, however, it was more than two decades before any attention was given to the vegetation surrounding the reservoir. The subsequent planting program focussed on protecting water quality and quantity, nevertheless aesthetics were a strong consideration. The selection of trees and shrubs reflected both botanical interests and garden fashion of the time. The nineteenth century landscapes, once established, saw little change apart from the natural cycle of growth and decay, and the replacement of many diseased pines with eucalypts. An area of native forest adjacent to the Yan Yean Reservoir has remained essentially in its natural state and is now designated a Reference Area. Nurseries were established at Yan Yean and Toorourrong reservoirs to provide trees for re- afforestation of the catchment and for aqueduct plantings. During the 1930s unemployed workers were used to beautify the pipe reserve in St George’s Road.

5.2 Early vistas A romanticised, picturesque view of Yan Yean Reservoir painted in 1860 by William Short shows some remnant indigenous trees and shrubs on the otherwise bald slopes around the shore.123 The skeleton of a large fallen tree on the south shore in the foreground suggests the conquest of nature achieved in the engineering feat of the reservoir, while the neat row of what appear to be young pine trees beside the embankment suggests the taming of the landscape. A photograph of the reservoir taken from the same vantage point in 1859124 shows the same bald landscape, without the picturesque interpretation. The row of pines is not visible in this photograph. A later photograph taken from the south bank, dated 1871, shows small shrubs or trees dotted near the bank, but not in the neat line shown in Short’s painting.125 Another undated early photograph taken from the spillway shows a railing fence running parallel with the embankment. Inside the fence, and several metres from the embankment a row of dark blobs on the image suggests a row of small trees or shrubs. Beyond the fence are the remnant eucalypts depicted in Short’s painting, but with fallen branches littering the ground.126

123 Reproduced in Dingle and Doyle, pp 58-9. 124 State Library of Victoria Picture Collection. 125 Photograph on display in the former caretaker’s house at Yan Yean. 126 Photograph held by Parks Victoria, Plenty Gorge Office.

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Figure 15 Yan Yean Reservoir - early view looking north from by-wash showing remnant trees (Parks Victoria)

A set of engravings published in the Australasian Sketcher in May 1881127 gives a view of the valve house showing eucalypts along the fence line with nothing near the embankment, and a view of the outlet basin with a neat row of small trees either side of the channel leading from the reservoir. These pictures suggest an early attempt at beautifying a small part of the landscape in the immediate reservoir environs with orderly rows of trees of unknown species, but that little else had been planted near the reservoir. In May 1881, a visitor to Yan Yean eulogised the partnership between man and nature in creating the scenic landscape: The lake is enclosed with low, grassy, lightly timbered hills, on the gentle, graceful slopes of which the sunlight fell pleasantly, mottled with cloud shadows which sailed slowly across the lake. … The shores and slopes of the lake are kept free from mouldering timber, and the general effect is a neatness and trimness which causes the scene rather to resemble a lake in a park than one of nature’s formation and care. There is nothing else to suggest an artificial origin to the broad sheet of wind-rippled water which lies and winds so picturesquely between these low green hills. Save, of course, the embankment at the lower end, but even this the harmonising influence of Nature is reducing to conformity with the whole scene, and is covering with green herbage on one side while its stone-pitched face on the other is weathering into the semblance of a grey, smooth, rocky shore. … The scene only wants a little tasteful attention to planting trees in suitable masses on the slopes of the lake to render it as pretty a vignette picture of lake and hill and distant mountain as the most exacting landscape-hunter could desire to see.128 Accompanying the description printed in the Australasian Sketcher in May 1881, was the set of engravings of Yan Yean Reservoir referred to above. The largest

127 Also held in State Library of Victoria Picture Collection. 128 Australasian Sketcher, 7 May 1881, p.155.

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picture showed the northern slopes sparsely timbered with young eucalypts, with the more thickly timbered ranges behind. The writer of the article was probably unaware that his suggested massed plantings were at that very time being attended to by the Water Supply Department, as outlined below. While such attention arose primarily out of concern for the quality and quantity of the water flowing into Yan Yean Reservoir, there was a strong element in the planting program that aimed to please the landscape-hunter.

5.3 Protecting and beautifying the reservoir The baldness of the surrounds revealed in the 1859 photograph and 1860 painting was partly due to the clearing of all vegetation from the site for the reservoir, but also due to extensive timber cutting in the catchment. Timber cutters had devastated the mountain forest in the Dividing Range to the north of the reservoir. An engraving in the Illustrated Australian News depicted the destruction of trees on Mt Disappointment in 1867, showing fallen logs lying on the ground.129 The waste of such timber was noted by the Water Supply Inquiry Board, which was convened to investigate the destruction of the aqueduct flume over the Plenty River during the storm in March 1878. Seeger suggests that the activities of the timber cutters may have been responsible for the debris that washed down the Plenty River on that stormy night, and that this led to the Inquiry Board’s recommendation that timber cutting in the Plenty Ranges be prohibited. Although a total prohibition was proclaimed in 1879, illegal cutting continued for a time.130 In 1882 William Ferguson, Inspector of State Forests, toured the area and wrote a damning report on the destruction of timber in the Plenty watershed of the Dividing Range. He warned: … unless steps are taken at once to conserve our forests, replant and nurse with care the young indigenous forests growing up, … the question of water supply to an increasing population will have to be dealt with as affecting the future of this great continent.131 As noted in previous chapters, trees were regarded as essential to attracting rainfall. Water quality was also of concern. The Inquiry Board was: … impressed by the marked contrast between the good order and condition of the surroundings of the reservoir itself at every point from the junction of the paved inlet with the Plenty River and apparent disregard of caretaking of the inlet streams passing through the Whittlesea flat.132 Grazing on the Upper Plenty Farmers’ Common was pinpointed as the main cause of pollution, and consequently, the common was abolished. The paddocks known as Bear’s Flat and Picnic Point leased by local farmers were also acquired by the Water Supply Department and closed to all other uses.133 In 1881, the Water Supply Department embarked on a program of replanting these areas and other parts of the immediate environs of Yan Yean Reservoir. Clearly the regeneration of forests and the protection of water quality were of primary concern.

129 State Library of Victoria Picture Collection 130 Seeger, R.C. “The History of the Development of Melbourne’s Water Supply Catchment Policy”, c.1969-71, VPRS 8609/P1, Unit 40, pp 8-10; Dingle and Doyle, p. 76. 131 Letter 20 June 1882, from William Ferguson, VPRS 8609/P28 Unit 2 File 9. 132 Quoted in Seeger, 1969-71. 133 Dingle and Doyle, p. 76.

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However, attention was also paid to the aesthetic impact new plantings would have on the landscape. The Yan Yean system was already established as a popular tourist venue, appealing to the public as an engineering marvel enhanced by the natural beauty of its surroundings, as highlighted in the Australasian Sketcher article quoted above. In 1881 William Davidson, Engineer of Water Supply, sought expert advice on the best species to plant around the reservoir. The obvious person to consult first was Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, Victoria’s first Government Botanist and former Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, and one of the several “highly scientific gentlemen” previously called to give evidence to the Inquiry Board against timber cutting. Von Mueller provided a detailed list of suggested plants for the immediate environs of the reservoir. The first concern was what, if anything, should be planted at the water’s edge. The planting of watercress was considered at the time the reservoir was built 25 years earlier, and von Mueller had been requested to import seeds to sow on the bottom before the reservoir was filled. Whether this was actually done was not known in 1881 - divers examining the bottom of the reservoir could find no trace of any vegetation. In any case, von Mueller had discovered that watercress planted in waterworks in New Zealand had become a “formidable pest” clogging up channels, so he was not about to recommend anything for the banks of the reservoir before he examined the soil.134 Von Mueller made his examination and advised “against any planting between the high and low water marks”. He did not recommend rushes and sedges at the water’s edge, because they would decay and pollute the water, suggesting instead, Hollow Rush (Helocharis spatelata135). He had noted this indigenous plant growing in a few favourable places on the margin of the reservoir. But von Mueller doubted whether the “extensive rearing of any rushy plants would much impede the ingress of impurities into the lake.” He recommended a narrow belt of vigorous vegetation for the two northern valleys - Bear’s Flat and Dry Creek - with “large strong kinds of perennial grasses for humid soil, and for frequently inundated land silt grass (Paspalum distichum) as planted on the Yarra Bank near the Botanic Gardens”.136 He also suggested a belt of tall Domax Reed137 [sic] and several species of bamboo “over the ground of the principal drainage near the lake” which would embellish the coastline landscape, and “masses of tall Gippsland Fan Palm, Date Palms and other hardy species of that noble order of plants” for ornamental purposes.138 For the Whittlesea Flat, presumably the former common, von Mueller suggested a number of exotic trees that would produce commercial crops, including various species of pines for turpentine, nut pines - especially American sorts - and Sugar Maple for sap, Cork Oak for bark and Valonia Oak for tanning acorns. He suggested Gigantic Virginian Swamp Cypress for the wettest places. The Minister, obviously keen on their economic potential, approved these suggestions, however, it is not known whether such trees were actually planted. Other suggestions for the

134 Australasian, 19 March 1881, p.372 (the author is indebted to Lindsay Mann for information regarding this reference) 135 Hollow Rush is currently known as Juncus gregiflorus. 136 Paspalum distichum is more commonly known today as Water Couch. 137 It is thought the plant referred to here is the grass Giant Reed (Arundo donax). 138 Letter from von Mueller to the Minister for Public Works, 21 March 1881, VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 2 File 9. It is thought the species referred to here may be Livistona australis and either Phoenix canariensis or Phoenix dactylifera respectively.

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Whittlesea flat were quick growing eucalypts, willows and poplars “for absorption of humidity”. Von Mueller’s most highly recommended trees, however, were conifers: ... as decaying leaves of most deciduous trees when flooded into the lake might impair purity of the water by decomposition, whereas the tardily falling foliage of Pines on account of its antiseptic oil will not impart any unpleasant odor or taste to the water.139 Pine had long been valued for its antiseptic qualities, but the antiseptic and medicinal properties of eucalyptus were also well known by this time. Joseph Bosisto had established the eucalyptus distilling industry in Victoria in the 1850s.140 Why then, did von Mueller put such emphasis on pines? Perhaps he considered pine needles less likely to pollute the water than gum leaves. Another reason was simply the fashion of the times. Pines, cypresses and other conifers were popular among European botanists and gardeners from the early nineteenth century because many species had recently been identified and brought to Europe from North and South America and Asia. This fascination with the new and exotic was brought to Australia by influential European and British botanists and gardeners such as von Mueller and Ferguson, who both collected conifers. Conifer collections, known as pinetums, were established in many large gardens in Victoria, especially cool climate gardens. According to garden historian Paul Fox, “No grand garden was complete without a collection of pines …”. Their attractions were both aesthetic and practical. The dark foliage and strong architectural lines of many conifers made them popular with landscape designers. They also became popular as windbreak plantations. Von Mueller suggested in 1859 that Pinus isignia (now known as Pinus radiata, or Monterey Pine) was of commercial potential, and they were widely adopted for softwood plantations.141 Pinus insignis featured prominently in von Mueller’s list for Yan Yean. In his letter to the Minister, von Mueller also recommended a general arboretum for the local test-growth of a great variety of trees and shrubs, “to become a nucleus for the test-culture in the Yan Yean region for the ultimate benefit of the extensive lands permanently reserved by the government”. Presumably this was to be a way of finding the most suitable trees for the catchment. This was an era of experimental planting. Just a few years later John La Gerche, the forester in charge of the Creswick State Forest, established an experimental plantation of exotic and native trees, featuring various pines, oaks, elms, sycamores and eucalypts.142 This mixed plantation of deciduous and evergreen trees can still be seen in Sawpit Gully near Creswick. It is not known whether von Mueller’s recommended arboretum was ever planted at Yan Yean. In May 1881, having gained the Minister’s approval for the planting scheme for the Whittlesea flat and the two northern valleys, Davidson asked Nicholas Bickford, Curator of Public Gardens, to confer with officers of the Department regarding the preparation of ground and purchase of seed.143 Bickford made some further suggestions for plants, naming a range of “fast growing and hardy pines” for the

139 Ibid. 140 See Shiel Des, Eucalyptus: essence of Australia, Carlton, 1985. 141 Aitkin, R, & Looker, M., The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2002, pp 155-6; Fox, Paul, Clearings , Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2005, p.183. 142 See Taylor, Angela, A Forester’s Log: The Story of John La Gerche and the Ballarat-Creswick State Forest 1882-1897, Melbourne University Press, 1998, Ch.7. 143 Memo 8 April 1881, VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 2 File 9.

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high ground - Pinus insignis, P. halepensis, P. pinea, P. ponderosa - also cedars and Wellington gigeantea.144 He advised that the swamps be planted with eucalyptus exclusively, such as E. marginata, E. jarrah, E. maculata (now known as Corymbia maculata), E. diverisidor (Karri), the pink blossoming E. eolophylla, E. citriodora (now known as Corymbia citriodora, Lemon Scented Gum), E. leucoxylon (Yellow Gum), “our own Red Gum tree” - presumably E. camaldulensis - and E. globulus (Blue Gum).145 Of the trees listed only the last three were native to Victoria, but only the River Red Gum (E. camaldulensis) was indigenous to Yan Yean. Blue Gums were the fast-growing eucalypts favoured by von Mueller.146 Bickford also suggested a number of ornamental large growing shrubs, including Pittosphorum [sic]. He recommended that trees best able to resist storms be planted nearest the water’s edge and that trees be planted thickly, no more than 20 feet apart, to assist each other to resist storms. Bickford did not include any deciduous trees on his list. He attached a plan for planting the various trees, but unfortunately it is not now held in the relevant file. In July 1881, Davidson ordered 4000 plants - pines, Red Gums, and pittosporum - for planting on the Whittlesea flat and the flat behind the embankment, Picnic Point and around the reservoir. He must have also ordered Blue Gums, because we find from the comments of Ferguson a year later that former common or Whittlesea flat was supporting a young plantation of “Pinus and Blue Gums”. Monterey Pines were the most extensively planted, with other exotic trees such as “P. ponderosa and Californian Conifera” [sic] doing well. Ferguson was surprised to find so much “luxuriant growth of young trees” in so short a time and noted the “very efficient system of care and protection bestowed on the young trees planted in the reserves around Yan Yean”.147

Figure 16 View of reservoir c.1970s showing River Red Gums behind embankment and dense growth of pines on the hill (Parks Victoria)

144 It is thought Bickford may be referring here to Washingtonia or Giant Redwood (Sequoidendron giganteum) 145 Letter from Bickford, 28 May 1881, VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 2 File 9. 146 Costermans, L.F., Trees of Victoria: an illustrated field guide, Melbourne, 1981, p.26; Taylor, p.140. 147 Davidson Memo, 4 July 1881, VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 2 File 9; Ferguson letter 20 June 1882.

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In June 1882, Davidson began another round of planting. He ordered from Ferguson at the Mt Macedon State Nursery, 1500 Blue Gums, 500 “Pinus insignis” for Picnic Point and the high banks of the southern slopes. He also ordered 500 Red Gums, 500 Jarra, and 500 Kowra (presumably he meant Karri) for Honeysuckle and Bear’s flats. The Western Australian trees - Jarra and Karri - were not available at the Nursery, but Ferguson supported the idea of planting them on the higher ground, interspersed amongst Blue Gums and Californian conifers. He favoured fast growing Western Australian trees as “very ornamental when in flower and in after years will furnish valuable timber”. A forester with an eye to future production, Ferguson seems to have forgotten that the catchment was closed to logging. Ferguson also recommended planting “English Oaks and European Pines” along the northern side of Bruce’s Creek and the: … continuation of planting over every vacant acre so that the landscape around may be made more pleasing and I have no doubt it will assist to a greatly increased rainfall in the locality.148 The interspersion of small numbers of a variety of eucalypts and exotic trees amongst the Blue Gums was regarded as a way of enhancing the aesthetic appearance of the plantations. However Davidson had difficulty obtaining some species, particularly those indigenous to Western Australia, and approached about five commercial nurseries, including Brunnings. By early July 1882, 2000 plants had been obtained and Inspector Wilson had prepared ground for 2000 more.149 The 1881-2 planting program formed the basis of the cultural landscape of the Yan Yean Reservoir reserve for the next few decades, and beyond. This landscape featured plantations of Monterey Pines around the perimeter of the reservoir, with Blue Gums on the higher slopes and River Red Gums in the wetter areas. There were also large plantings of pittosporum throughout the reserve, with other exotic species of conifers and Western Australian eucalypts interspersed throughout. In 1888, the large plantations of pines and other trees in the reservoir reserve were considered worthy of note in the description of the “Yan Yean Waterworks” in Victoria and its Metropolis.150 The tourist guide Picturesque Victoria of 1892 noted that the shores were planted with: …large numbers of pines and other ornamental trees and the beauty of its surrounds has been greatly enhanced thereby.151 Almost a decade later the MMBW Chairman’s Report for the years 1899-1901 were echoing the earlier comments: A large number of pines, eucalyptus and other ornamental tress have been planted around the lake, enhancing its picturesque appearance.152 It is not clear whether there had been an ongoing program of plantings since the 1880s. However, by 1905 the Board could report that the reservoir was surrounded by “pines, jarrah, redgum, box, eucalypts”, and that Picnic Point, once a picnic ground, was now overgrown with trees.

148 Ibid. 149 Davidson memo 4 July 1882, letter from Mr Brunning 12 July 1882, VPRS 8609/P28, Unit 2 File 9. 150 Sutherland, Alexander, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Vol.2A, Melbourne, 1888, p.24. 151 Victorian Railways, Picturesque Victoria and How to Get There, Melbourne, 1897. P.15. 152 MMBW Chairman’s Report 1899-1901, p.50.

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The cultural landscape in which Yan Yean Reservoir is situated was created and developed during John Wilson’s long tenure as Resident Inspector or Caretaker. Early in the twentieth century Wilson cut down some of the trees that he had planted around the reservoir and along the aqueduct to the pipehead nearly 30 years earlier. Wilson cut the timber into scantlings, joists, boards and planks for use as gates and other works in the reservoir reserve.153 This was an expression of the ideal of self-sufficiency that prevailed in the management of the Yan Yean system. At some stage, possibly soon after the MMBW took over the administration of the water supply in 1891, a nursery was established to provide plant stock, another expression of self-sufficiency. The nursery at Yan Yean was situated on the west bank of the reservoir to the north of the inlet. Matthew Ryan was nurseryman; his son Jack continued this work.154 This was not the only nursery attached to a waterworks in Victoria. By this time the Ballarat Water Commission employed a forester, who was propagating seeds and seedling for the Ballarat Water Reserves, also with a strong emphasis on pines.155 It is believed that the Yan Yean nursery raised the seedlings for new plantings, particularly Sugar Gums (E. cladocalyx), a native of South Australia that had been widely adopted for plantings along roads in Victoria.156 This species came to be adopted as the predominant eucalypt at Yan Yean and along the aqueduct to Morang. A double row of large Sugar Gums along the western border beside Track 1 may have been planted from stock raised at the nursery. Doug Kerr, whose father succeeded George Wilson as Caretaker in 1923, spent his childhood and youth at Yan Yean, and knew the whole area intimately. That double row of Sugar Gums was already established in his time.157 Mr Kerr noticed little change to the plantations during the 1920s to 1940s, apart from the occasional removal of dead trees and the harvesting of some pine trees, which were sold to a sawmiller in the early 1930s. Mr Kerr remembers that the old nursery was dilapidated: “it had already done its job”. It was surrounded by a wire netting fence and there was a huge Red Gum fence on the northern boundary. He remembers seeing daffodils and other bulbs growing there many years later.158 This nursery was replaced by the Wallaby Creek nursery in 1929 (see below). Mr Kerr also remembers that there were 250 River Red Gums along the base of the embankment. He believes they were planted shortly after the reservoir was built, but it is more likely that they were amongst those planted in 1881-82. Those River Red Gums were removed when the embankment was strengthened in 2001. Two red flowering gums (species unknown) that were planted either side of the inlet channel were also growing in Mr Kerr’s youth.159 One of these trees has died in recent years. Landscapes are dynamic creations, ever-changing with the seasons and years, as trees grow and mature, or suffer the effects of disease, pests or fire, they are replaced, sometimes with different species, according to the philosophy and fashion of the time. In the Yan Yean catchment it appears that the only deliberate changes made following the initial nineteenth century plantings were Wilson’s timber harvesting

153 The Operations of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works: Water Supply & Sewerage Schemes: Special edition of the Building, Engineering and Mining Journal, 1905, p.34. 154 Information supplied by Dr Helen Doyle; Doug Kerr also mentioned Jack Ryan as nurseryman. 155 Taylor, pp 132-4. 156 Costermans, p.29. 157 Personal comment to author, August 2006. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid.

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noted above, the removal of dead or diseased trees and their replacement. A major shift in the MMBW’s approach to plantings was and the general replacement of Monterey Pines (Pinus radiata) with Sugar Gums (E. cladocalyx) as the predominant tree species in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. In the early 1960s an infestation of Sirex wasp in many of the pines around the reservoir necessitated the removal of the trees, changing the landscape considerably.160 These pines were replaced by Sugar Gums in many areas, including the high ground between the south shore and Arthur’s Creek Road. A number of large old pines are still growing at Woolshed, along with some River Red Gums, and at Picnic Point where the pines are the most thickly planted. A few Western Yellow Pines (Pinus pondorosa) were also noted recently at Picnic Point. Throughout the area there are many trees that were naturally propagated (self-sown) from the original plantings.161

5.4 The Caretakers’ gardens

5.4.1 Yan Yean The Resident Inspector’s house, built at the same time the Yan Yean Reservoir was constructed, was occupied by the Resident Inspectors - later known as Caretakers - and their families for over a century. It is not known when the garden was first laid out, but it was most likely to have been established during John Wilson’s term. A photograph dating from around the turn of the century shows the front garden with flower and shrub beds enclosed by low privet hedges, with a central path from the front door on the east side, leading to the reservoir. Large mature exotic and native trees including eucalypts are outside this formal garden and behind the house.162 Figure 17 Remnants of the garden at the Yan Yean Caretaker’s residence, from left, the Fan Palm, two Bunya Bunya pines, and the Stone Pine (Context)

A recent plan of the garden, drawn from memory by Doug Kerr, shows that the privet hedges curved across the front of the house. The plan shows lawn rather than flower and shrub beds enclosed by the hedges, with a palm tree each side. Only one of these Fan Palms (Livistona australis) now survives (see above). According to Mr Kerr, the garden was made by his mother and Mr Albert, an MMBW worker at Yan Yean. However, the early photograph shows that the framework of hedging was already established before the Kerrs’ time, which commenced in the 1920s. The photograph also shows one of the Fan Palms, which was quite small at the time. Presumably Mrs Kerr and Mr Albert were responsible for changes and ongoing

160 Dingle and Doyle, pp 108-9. 161Pers. comm. Ross Mugavin and observation by author, August 2006. 162 This photograph is on the interpretive panel in front of the house, and is held by Parks Victoria, Plenty Gorge Office.

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maintenance. Mr Kerr remembers that two huge pine trees in front of the house there were cut down 1947-8. Other large trees presently in the front garden, including three Bunya Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), an English Oak (Quercus robur), a Holm Oak (Quercus ilex), a Stone Pine (Pinus pinea) a Peppercorn (Schinus areira), a Pittosporum species, and a large English Elm (Ulmus procera) at the back near the entrance gate were there in the Kerrs’ time.163

5.4.2 Wallaby Creek As noted in Chapter 2, caretaker’s accommodation was provided at Wallaby Creek from the time the system was built. At some stage an orchard was planted. This was important as part of the self-sufficiency scheme adopted by the Board for its reservoir staff, particularly in the remote Wallaby Creek district. At the time the quarters were upgraded in 1928 the garden was laid out in a semi-formal style similar to that of the Caretaker’s garden at Yan Yean, with five acres of trees and shrubs, mainly exotic.164 Most of the large tree species reflected a continuing taste for exotic conifers. A plan of the garden drawn by Rose Ness in 1997 shows a long avenue of Douglas Firs and Californian Redwoods, interspersed with a few Blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon). The latter tree grows in mountain forests and is probably indigenous to the area. At the south-western end of the garden is a row of four Monterey Pines, the only specimens of this species shown on this garden plan. Other large tree specimens, mostly exotic, are dotted throughout the garden. Exotic shrubs include rhododendron, azaleas, camelias and a New Zealand Pittosporum.165 It is possible that this garden is modelled on the gardens created by the wealthy in their mountain retreats at Mount Macedon and the Dandenong Ranges. Further research and a physical examination to establish the age of the plants is necessary to ascertain whether Ness’ plan reflects the original lay-out and plantings. This garden was a significant element in the accommodation provided for visitors to the “Quarters”. Ness noted that some of the plants have names on them, and used the term “Botanical Gardens” in her description.166 Clearly the garden was an important part of the showpiece that was the Wallaby Creek water supply scheme, contrasting with the surrounding bush and reflecting the MMBW’s pride in the whole system.

5.4.3 Preston and Toorourrong Both Preston and Toorourrong reservoirs had caretaker’s residences with associated gardens. Apart from a few shrubs, little physical evidence of the garden layout at Preston remains. Presumably the small garden surrounding the Caretaker’s House at Toorourrong was established when the brick house was built in 1929.

163 Plan of garden in possession of Ross Mugavin, Parks Victoria, Plenty Gorge Office, personal comments by Doug Kerr to author, August 2006. 164 Register of the National Estate, file 2/14/054/0020; Ness, Rose, “Wallaby Creek Resort - Garden and Buildings Report”, 1997, held in Heritage Victoria file on Wallaby Creek Quarters; see photo in Dingle and Doyle, p.96. 165 Ness. 166 Ibid.

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5.5 Reference Areas Part of the Yan Yean Reservoir landscape that was not included in the planting programs outlined above is the area to the north-east of the reservoir. Because it has been part of the closed catchment since the 1880s, the area has suffered little human interference and has remained in its natural state. In the latter part of the twentieth century it was reserved as Reference Areas. Reference areas are tracts of public land containing viable samples of one or more land types that are relatively undisturbed and that are subject to human intervention elsewhere. They are reserved in perpetuity under the Reference Areas Act 1978. Their purpose is to serve as a natural standard against which similar land types which have been altered through human interference can be compared.167 The Yan Yean North Reference Area is representative of low elevation open foothill forests south of the Great Dividing Range, comprising Red Stringybark and Candlebark Gum forests. The Yan Yean South Reference Area is representative of flat open forest and grassy woodland, consisting of White Sallee (lowland form of Snow Gum) and Swamp Gum, blending with low foothill forests of Red Stringybark and Yarra Gum. The only invasive tree from the planting program is the Monterey Pine.168 The Yan Yean Reservoir landscape thus combines a relatively untouched native environment of the Reference Areas with a cultural landscape that represents attempts by European settlers to improve the quality and quantity of the water supply, while beautifying the landscape according to nineteenth century interests in arboriculture and notions of aesthetics.

5.6 Protection of the Plenty Ranges watershed Davidson’s 1882 planting program extended beyond the immediate reservoir surrounds into the hills of the catchment to the north. Ferguson had recommended that the Great Dividing Ranges in the Plenty watershed be re-afforested with Blue Gum, Stringybark, Mountain Ash and other eucalypts, and this recommendation received Ministerial approval.169 In his biennial report for 1897-1899, the Chairman of the MMBW was able to announce that all of the land in the Yan Yean watershed was now in the possession of the Board. It was fenced so that it could not be used for any other purpose than water catchment. The work of planting and making firebreaks in the Plenty Ranges continued as an ongoing program, particularly after bushfires. Following the 1926 fires, which damaged the forests at Wallaby Creek, the Board embarked on a new re-afforestation program in the Yan Yean catchment. In 1929 a Superintendent of Forests was appointed, with his headquarters at Wallaby Creek. The upgrade of the residence included accommodation for the new officer, Mr Middlin, and a nursery was established to raise new tree stock. Firebreaks, three chains wide, were cleared around the whole watershed boundaries, and by 1932 thousands of new trees were planted in the Wallaby Creek catchment, including 27,000 eucalyptus seedlings,

167 “Yan Yean Reference Areas Management Plan”, Melbourne Water, 1995. The Yan Yean North and Yan Yean South Reference areas were described in the Land Conservation Council Victoria Melbourne Study Area Final Recommendations January 1977. 168 Ibid. 169 Ferguson letter 20 June 1882.

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and conifers such as Californian Redwoods and Oregon.170 Doug Kerr remembers his father planting Redwoods and Oregon, and seeing Jack Ryan with bags of pine cones for seed to plant at Wallaby Creek. The cones were probably from the trees at Yan Yean.

5.7 Aqueduct plantings Unfortunately none of the experts consulted in 1881-82 mentioned any form of planting along the aqueducts. It is unlikely that any plantings had been made along the original channel from the Plenty River through the Whittlesea flat, as the lack of “caretaking” of the inlet streams was noted by Ferguson in 1882. The original aqueduct near the junction of the former western branch now has a row of Sugar Gums. It is not known when they were planted or whether they replaced earlier trees. Nor is it known what trees were originally planted along the Yan Yean to Morang aqueduct built in 1874-5. According to a 1905 description of the Yan Yean system, John Wilson planted trees along the aqueduct “nearly thirty years ago”. These were amongst the trees Wilson harvested for fencing and other works at the reservoir.171 It is probable that these trees were pines, considering their popularity in the 1870s. A large Monterey Pine and several cypresses were noted along the southern boundary of the Morang Reservoir site in 2004, as possible remnants of an original plantation.172 At some stage a double row of Sugar Gums was planted along this aqueduct, and many of those between Gordons and McDonalds roads remain. It is not known when these trees were planted, however, it is possible that they were planted from stock raised at the Yan Yean Reservoir nursery.173 The Clearwater Channel from Toorourrong was built in 1881, at the time von Mueller was recommending pines to Davidson, so it is very likely that the existing mature Monterey Pines along the channel between the Toorourrong Reservoir and Cades Road were planted soon after the channel’s construction. As noted in chapter 4, Ritchie mentioned that trees and shrubs were planted around all the basin enclosures to prevent dust and other impurities from blowing into the water.174 Presumably the pines, chosen for their antiseptic properties, were planted along the aqueducts to serve the same purpose. According to Andrews, the pines along the aqueduct between Yea Road and Cades Road Whittlesea are 100 years old, possibly older.175 Mature Monterey Pines also line the remnants of the Maroondah Aqueduct running through Research and Eltham North and the last stretch of the aqueduct near the Junction Basin at Preston.

170 MMBW Annual Reports for years ended 30 June 1929 to 1932; Dingle and Doyle, pp 99-100. 171 The Operations of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works, 1905, p.34. 172 Clark, Vincent, “McDonalds Road South Morang Cultural Heritage Study”, 2004, p.20; 173Clark, p.20; Simonsen, Dean, Treelogic, “Arboricultural Assessment and Report: Mill Park Lakes - Melbourne Water Pipe track”, 2005. 174 Ritchie, p.9. 175 Andrews, Lachlan, R&T Tree Services Pty Ltd, “Arboricultural Report, Melbourne Water Aqueduct Whittlesea,” 2004, p.4.

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Figure 18 Pines along the Clearwater Channel near the Plenty River junction (Context, 2006)

Figure 19 Sugar Gums along the pipe reserve, south of Gordon’s Road, South Morang (Context, 2006)

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5.8 Beautification of St Georges Road pipe track During the early 1930s the MMBW and the Cities of Preston and Northcote councils co-operated to beautify the Yan Yean pipe track south of the Preston Reservoir and along St Georges Road. Some of the funds were provided as sustenance work for unemployed workers during the Depression. The beautification program included planting Canary Island palms and sowing lawns along several kilometres of the track in the centre of St George’s Road running through Preston and Northcote. Flower and shrub beds were created as borders at each foot crossing or road. The beautification scheme included the erection of seven reinforced concrete valve houses over the valves along St Georges Road.176 Five of them survive: four Instrumentation Cubicles and one open-sided Egyptian Revival Valve House. The surviving Instrumentation Cubicles, near Bell Street, Oakover Road and Sumner Avenue, were built in 1929. They are small domed reinforced concrete structures with fluted walls. The Egyptian Revival Valve House, just south of Miller Street, was constructed in 1928 of reinforced concrete. Figure 20 Elevations of Valve Houses on St Georges Road Reserve, 1928-9s (MMBW Plan No 28-27, R. Concrete Building over 32’ Valve (L.P.) on Pipe Track, dated 20.02.28 & MMBW Plan No 29-140, Concrete House & Base for Valves on Pipe Track, dated 05.09.29)

176 MMBW Annual Reports for years ended 30 June 1929 to 1932.

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6 RECREATION AND COMMEMORATION

6.1 Introduction Yan Yean became a popular tourist resort, particularly after the opening of the Whittlesea railway in 1889. The surrounding bush, Bear’s Castle, and the Cascades north of the Toorourrong Reservoir were popular with walkers, and the New Year’s Day Friendly Societies’ picnic was an annual event for over 50 years. In the twentieth century, when improved transport widened options for tourist areas further afield, the Yan Yean system lost some of its appeal, however the Wallaby Creek Lodge remained a special holiday place for MMBW Commissioners. Public celebrations accompanied the commencement and completion of the Yan Yean system, and two commemorative fountains were made. Continued pride in the system has been expressed by celebrations at each significant anniversary, with the centenary coinciding with the opening of the Upper Yarra scheme. Two twentieth century monuments recognise the importance of the mountain forests as the source of the water supply.

6.2 Tourism & recreation From the time it was opened, the Yan Yean system was regarded as a place worth visiting, partly to marvel at “this gigantic hydraulic conquest”, which was described by a journalist who visited the reservoir in 1867: … the stupendous masses of masonry, the millions of tons of excavation, escarpment, and embankment, the many miles of cuttings and culverts, kerbing and channellings of facings, slopings, linings and puddlings burst upon the wondering view.177 The Yan Yean Reservoir was one of the world’s largest man-made lakes and Victoria’s largest engineering works. Despite the difficulties with the supply and quality of the water and consequent public scorn, the Yan Yean system became a source of pride to Melburnians, highlighting the achievements of a young colony. The picturesque bush setting of the vast expanse of water with its backdrop of forested mountains was an added attraction. By 1862 Yan Yean was being hailed as a tourist resort for picnics. The district was featured in guidebooks to Melbourne’s tourist attractions. In 1868 Yan Yean was described as a “very favourable resort” which offered shooting and fishing, although the hours of fishing were restricted, and shooting water birds on the lake was prohibited as were boating and swimming. One of Yan Yean’s attractions was its proximity to Melbourne, accessible as a day trip by coach or buggy. For longer stays accommodation was available at the Yan Yean Hotel, the Lamb Inn at South Yan Yean and a hotel at Whittlesea.178

177 Cited in Edwards, pp 34-5. 178 Ibid, pp 35-6; Dingle and Doyle, pp 60-1; Jones, p.234.

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Figure 21 Yan Yean Hotel , 1882, Graham, H.J. (State Library of Victoria, Image number: an6439247)

Figure 22 Recreation at Yan Yean Reservoir, 1906, Grimwade, Russell (University of Melbourne, Record ID UMA/I/3083)

The opening of the railway to Whittlesea in 1889, and special Sunday excursion fares, made Yan Yean even more accessible to the general public as a day trip. By comparison with other attractions further afield, the fare to Yan Yean was inexpensive. A walk to Bear’s Castle would be part of the day’s activities. Writers in

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the 1880s and 90s suggested the highlight of a visit to Yan Yean was the trip to the Cascades, where the engineering wonders of artificial waterfalls amidst towering timbers and fern gullies made a “peculiar and striking” scene. Vehicles could be hired from Whittlesea for the trip. It was also a popular excursion for bushwalkers.179 The biggest annual event was the New Year’s Day Friendly Societies’ picnic, which from 1872 to 1939 brought people from all over Melbourne - three to four thousand in the 1900s. The entertainment featured brass bands, dancing, merry-go- rounds and organised athletic events for children and adults. Local residents usually won the tenders to sell refreshments. Proceeds of the day went to charities.180 Yan Yean lost some of its popularity in the 1920s and 30s as new places such as bayside beaches and the Dandenong Ranges became popular, and the car began to take tourists to places away from railway routes. However the Yan Yean system remained popular with people from the northern suburbs, and from the 1940s bushwalkers re-discovered the Cascades and Bear’s Castle. In the 1950s a new picnic area was laid out below the dam wall to prevent rubbish from entering the water. Later, post-war immigrants moving out to the northern suburbs discovered Yan Yean’s charms as a venue for family picnics or social club outings.181 MMBW Commissioners continued to enjoy the special privileges of holidays at Wallaby Creek Lodge, with access to areas now restricted to the public. They even allowed themselves the privilege of fishing from a boat on Yan Yean Reservoir.182

6.3 Celebrations and commemorations The first official celebration was the turning of the first sod by Governor La Trobe on 20 December 1853. The ceremony was organised by the contractors for the embankment, Martindale and Steele, and involved considerable effort and expense, Yan Yean being at the time quite remote from Melbourne. Because of the bad state of the road, it was a five-hour journey for the large party of guests, which included Water Commissioners, members of Parliament and influential citizens. A marquee was set up for the refreshments and toasts, and a regimental band was brought out to provide music. Clearly this was regarded as a momentous occasion, but, due to the remoteness of the site from Melbourne, it was limited to a privileged few. By contrast, the turning on of the Yan Yean water supply in Melbourne on New Year’s Eve 1857 was a great public occasion and spectacle, celebrated with a parade through Melbourne’s streets, as noted in chapter 1. An early monument to the Yan Yean water supply system was the Victoria Fountain, erected by the Melbourne City Council on the corner of Swanston and Collins streets in 1859. Because of the high pressure of Yan Yean water flowing through the pipes in the early years, the fountain sprayed passers-by, becoming, like the dirty water it sprayed, an object of ridicule. In 1862 another, more successful, fountain was built to commemorate the commencement of the Yan Yean water supply. The River God Fountain, created in stone and cement by Charles Summers, and depicting a larger than life size figure supporting an open clam shell on its shoulders, was placed in the Fitzroy Gardens. In 1960s it was dismantled and replaced by another fountain. The River God

179 Sutherland, Alexander, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Vol.2A, Melbourne, 1888, pp 23-4; Victorian Railways, Picturesque Victoria and How to Get There, Melbourne, 1897, pp 15-16; Edwards, pp 35-6. 180 Edwards, pp 35-7; Dingle and Doyle, p.103 181 Dingle and Doyle, p.104-5; Jones, p.239. 182 Ibid, pp 104-7.

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Fountain was restored and re-erected in the Fitzroy Gardens with a new rockery in 1996.183 According to Dingle and Doyle, the Yan Yean system was integral to the development of the MMBW’s sense of history. The Board regarded this water supply system as a record of its past achievements, even though it was established before the Board was constituted. This connection with the past was expressed when the Upper Yarra Dam was opened in 1957, the centenary year of the Yan Yean system, and a plaque to that effect was placed at the new dam. In 1962 the Board “ceremoniously laid two stone blocks from the original Yan Yean works” at the opening of the South-Eastern Freeway. 184 This was Melbourne’s first freeway and the Board was the responsible authority for the project. In November 1983, according to a plaque on site, the MMBW opened the Yan Yean Caretaker’s House as visitors’ centre, where displays of the Yan Yean system’s history were exhibited.185 In 1978 the Yan Yean community organised a “Back-to” event. It was a time of change for the district, when the old farming community was beginning to give way to encroaching suburbia from the south. The role of the Yan Yean system in Melbourne’s water supply was also diminishing, and this was perhaps symbolised for the community by the fact that the resident caretaker had vacated the house in 1971. The Back-to reflected the local community’s nostalgia for the Yan Yean system’s days of fame. It included a 125 year commemoration of the turning of the first sod, involving the Governor, Sir Henry Winneke, and the Chairman of the MMBW, Alan Croxford. A descendant of James Blackburn was also invited as a special guest.186 In 2003 Melbourne Water marked the 150th year of the turning of the first sod with the publication of the book Yan Yean: A history of Melbourne’s early water supply. A monument relating to the catchment’s forest, rather than the waterworks, is a small memorial plaque at Toorourrong Reservoir, honouring the life and work of botanist Dr David Ashton (1919-1999) who made a life-long study of the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans). Ashton concentrated his research in the forest of the Wallaby Creek catchment, where 300 year old stands of the species are found. The closure of the catchment in the nineteenth century has protected this magnificent forest from logging. The plaque, provided by Parks Victoria, is attached to a simple rock, presumably local granite. The monument is situated, rather incongruously, near a pine tree close to the southern end of the spillway. Related to this is another monument of sorts in the Wallaby Creek forest. It is “Mr Jessop”, a Mountain Ash tree that is believed to be one of Victoria’s tallest trees. This tree was named by Ashton for John Jessop, Chairman of the MMBW 1940- 55, in recognition of his encouragement of research into old growth forests.187 “Mr Jessop” links the ancient mountain forests that were so vital to the production of pure water, with the organisation that was responsible for providing Melbourne’s water supply for a century, and is a reminder of the importance of the closed catchment policy.

183 www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info, Parks, Fitzroy Gardens, River God Fountain. 184 Dingle and Doyle, p.108. 185 Ibid., p.109. 186 Ibid., p.108; Edwards, pp 9 & 103; Whittlesea Post, 1 March, 26 April, 20 September 1978. 187 Griffiths, pp 61-2, 143.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Archives - Public Record Office Victoria VPRS 8601 Consignment 2 MMBW Detail Plan 3286. VPRS 8609: Consignment (P)1, Units 11, 12,40, 50, Consignment (P)26, (MMBW Photographic collection, Unit 1 Consignment (P)28 (MMBW Seeger Collection) Units 2, 3, 4, 6, 14, Consignment (P)35 (MMBW Plans) Units 31, 45 & 46.

Published Bride, T.F. Letters from Victorian Pioneers, Melbourne, 1983. Kelly, William, Life in Victoria, London, 1859, (Reprint Kilmore 1977. Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Chairman’s Report, biennial reports from 1891 to 1901; Annual Report for year ended 30 June, 1915 to 1956 and 1961 to 1990. Pickersgill, Joseph, Victorian Railways Tourist’s Guide, Melbourne, 1885. Sutherland, Alexander, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Vol.2A, Melbourne, 1888. Victorian Railways, Picturesque Victoria and How to Get There, Melbourne, 1897.

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Published Aitkin, R, & Looker, M., The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2002. A Century of Water Supply: Yan Yean Reservoir 1857, Upper Yarra Reservoir 1957, Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne, 1957. Alves, L., Holgate, A. Taplin, G., Monash Bridges: Typology Study of Reinforced concrete bridges in Victoria 1897-1917, Monash University Faculties of Engineering and Arts, 1998 Boughton, Walter, (ed.) A Century of Water Resources Development in Australia, 1900-1999, Barton, 1999. Binnie, G.M., Early Victorian Water Engineers, London, 1981.

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Bruce, F.E., “Water-Supply”, in Singer, Charles et al. (eds) A History of Technology, Vol.5, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp 552-68.

Carroll, Brian and Rule, Ian, Preston: An Illustrated History, 1985. Closs, Gerry, “A Story in a Landscape: A Natural and Human History of the Plenty Valley”, in Ellem, Lucy G. (ed.) The Australian Experience of the Plenty Valley, Bundoora, 1996. Costermans, L.F., Trees of Victoria: an illustrated field guide, Melbourne, 1981.

Davidson, Jim and Spearritt, Peter, Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia since 1870, Carlton, 2000. Davison, Graeme, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, Carlton, 1978. Dingle, Tony and Doyle, Helen, Yan Yean, A history of Melbourne’s early water supply, North Melbourne, 2003. Dingle, Tony, The Victorians: Settling, McMahons Point, 1984. Dingle, Tony and Rasmussen, Carolyn, Vital Connections: Melbourne and its Board of Works 1891-1991, Ringwood, 1991.

Edwards, Dianne, Yan Yean: A History, Yan Yean, 1978. Ellem, Lucy G. (ed.) The Cultural Landscape of the Plenty Valley, Papers delivered at a conference held by Plenty Valley Arts Inc. at La Trobe University School of Arts History at the Whittlesea Civic Centre, South Morang, 21 May 1995, Bundoora, 1995.

Forster, H.W., Preston: Lands and People 1838-1967, Melbourne, 1968. Fox, Paul, Clearings , Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2005

Gibbs, George A., Water Supply and Sewerage Systems of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works; Compiled from official documents, Melbourne, 1925. Griffiths, Tom, Secrets of the Forest: Discovering History in Melbourne’s Ash Range, Allen & Unwin, 1992.

Henry, F.J.J., The Water Supply and Sewerage of Sydney, Sydney, 1939.

Jones, Michael, Nature’s Plenty: A history of the City of Whittlesea, North Sydney, 1992.

Keating, Jenny, The Drought Walked Through: A history of water shortage in Victoria, Melbourne, 1992.

Lay, Maxwell, Melbourne Miles: the Story of Melbourne’s Roads, Melbourne, 2003.

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Payne, J.W., The Plenty: A centenary history of the Whittlesea Shire, Kilmore, 1975. Powell, J.M. Plains of Promise Rivers of Destiny: Water Management and the Development of Queensland 1824 to 1990, Bowen Hills, 1992. Powell, J.M., Watering the Garden State: land and community in Victoria 1834-1988, Sydney, 1989. Powell, J.M., Watering the Western Third: water, land and community in Western Australia, 1826-1998, Perth, 1998. Preston, Harley (eds) Australian Dictionary of Biography, “Blackburn, James (1803- 1854) in Shaw, A.G.L. and Clark, C.M.H..1: 1788-1850, Carlton, 1966.

Seeger, R.C., “The history of Melbourne’s water supply—Part 1”, Victorian Historical Magazine, Vol.19, 1941-2, and Part 2, Victorian Historical Magazine Vol. 22, 1947-8. Serle, Geoffrey, John Monash: A Biography, Melbourne, 1982. Shiel Des, Eucalyptus: essence of Australia, Carlton, 1985

Taylor, Angela, A Forester’s Log: The Story of John La Gerche and the Ballarat- Creswick State Forest 1882-1897, Melbourne University Press, 1998 The Operations of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works: Water Supply & Sewerage Schemes: Special edition of the Building, Engineering and Mining Journal, 1905.

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Unpublished Andrews, Lachlan, R&T Tree Services Pty Ltd, “Arboricultural Report, Melbourne Water Aqueduct Whittlesea,” 2004. Clark, Vincent, “McDonalds Road South Morang Cultural Heritage Study", 2004. Doyle Helen, “Yan Yean Pipe track (Preston Reservoir to McDonalds Road)”, draft report prepared for Context Pty Ltd, August 2004. Hewitt, Geoff, “Yan Yean pipe track report”, unpublished report for Context Pty Ltd & Melbourne Water, 2003. Melbourne Water “Yan Yean Reference Areas Management Plan”, 1995. MMBW, “Notes on the Melbourne Water Supply”, 1902. Ness, Rose, “Wallaby Creek Resort - Garden and Buildings Report”, 1997, held in Heritage Victoria file on Wallaby Creek Quarters. Register of the National Estate, file 2/14/054/0020, Wallaby Creek Weir, Aqueduct and Associated Sites, Kinglake, Vic. Register of the National Estate, file 2/11/033/0235, Royal Exhibition Building National Historic Place, Carlton, Vic. Simonsen, Dean, Treelogic, “Arboricultural Assessment and Report: Mill Park Lakes - Melbourne Water Pipe track”, 2005.

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Pictures State Library of Victoria Picture Collection Parks Victoria Plenty Gorge Office

Websites Alan Holgate: home.vicnet.net.au/~aholgate/jm/jm_intro.html, June 2006. City of Melbourne, www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info, Parks, Fitzroy Gardens, River God Fountain Department of Primary Industries and Water Tasmania website: www.dpiw.tas.gov.au, December 2006. Melbourne Water, www.melbournewater.com.au, May 2006. Russell, Geoff, “Bringing Water & Wastewater services to Central Victoria”, Coliban Water website: www.coliban,com.au, December 2006.

Oral source Information provided by Mr Doug Kerr, August 2006.

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