Showing posts with label Busby's Bore. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Centennial Park Sculptures - Centennial Park - Sydney - New South Wales

Centennial Park

Statues And Sculptures.

The Original Design For Centennial Park Had A Total of 31 Statues Through The Park. Over The Years Due To Vandalism And Weathering Only 19 Remained In 1946 And Today There Are Only 9 (By My Count; Centennial Parklands Says Only Three Of The Original Statues Remain).

Charles Dickens Was A Renowned English born Novelist & Social Commentator. He Achieved Popular Acclaim In The Late 1830s, And His Fame Grew Until His Death In 1870.
Centennial Park Was Officially Opened By Sir Henry Parkes, On January 26th 1888 To Commemorate 100 Years Of European Settlement In Australia

The Marble Statue Of Charles Dickens Appears To Have Been 1 Of 11 Statues Acquired In 1889 As Decoration For The New Park. It Was Originally At The Junction Of Parkes And Hamilton Drive But Was Relocated To The Junction Of Dickens And Loch Avenue In 1897, To Make Way For The Statue Of Sir Henry Parkes.

The Statue Is 1 Of Only 2 Known Life Size Representations Of Charles Dickens In The World (According To Monument Australia; Centennial Parklands Says It Is One Of Three); The Other Is A Bronze Statue In Clark Park, Philadelphia, USA.

In 1972 Most Of The Remaining Statues In The Park Were Removed & Put In Storage. Then The Statue Was Lost, And Its Location Was Unknown For Over 40 Years.

When Gaenor Vallack, A Volunteer At The NSW Library And A Member Of The Dickens Society, Was Flicking Through Edwin Wilson's Book The Wishing Tree A Picture Of Charles Dickens Statue Caught Her Eye.

In November 2006, Sandra Faulkner, Then President Of The NSW Dickens Society, Wrote To The Sydney Morning Herald's Column 8 Asking If Anyone Had Any Idea If The Statue Still Existed And If So, Where Was It?

In 2007, Column 8 published Saying That The Statue Was Placed In Protective Custody By The Royal Botanic Gardens, And That The Charles Dickens Statue Had Lost Its Head. The Statue Was Later Restored With A New Head And Unveiled Back In Centennial Park On 7 February 2011.

The Rest of the Story – Centennial Park's Statues, Then and Now

My story above runs from 1888 to Dickens's return in 2011. Here's the fuller version of how he got his head back, along with what we know of the other statues that once lined the drives of the People's Park, which ones survive, and where you can find them on your next walk or ride around Grand Drive.

Timeline

1827–1837 – Busby's Bore is dug to carry water from the Lachlan Swamps, now Centennial Park, to Hyde Park.
26 January 1888 – Sir Henry Parkes opens Centennial Park, "the People's Park".
1888 – Villeroy & Boch make the terracotta statues "Sunrise" and "Sunset".
1889 – There are eleven statues and two vases in the park. Four terracotta vases by Rhode and Andrea are placed along Grand Drive.
c.1891 – The marble Charles Dickens, probably by Job Hanson, is set up at Parkes and Hamilton Drives.
1890s – The Villeroy & Boch griffins are installed on Parkes Drive near the Paddington Gates.
1893 – Premier Sir George Dibbs is asked in Parliament about Dickens's will forbidding memorials, and declines to remove the statue.
1897 – A statue of Sir Henry Parkes goes up, and Dickens moves to Dickens Drive and Loch Avenue.
1 January 1901 – The Commonwealth of Australia is inaugurated at a pavilion in the park.
By 1917 – The Grand Drive vases are removed as damaged.
Before 1946 – Disraeli is "destroyed by accident". "Charity" comes down in 1946.
1959 – Lincoln, Garfield and "One More Shot" are removed as too decayed to keep.
1970–1972 – After vandalism, Parkes and most of the remaining statues, including Dickens, Diana and the griffins, go into storage.
1986 – Cedric Dickens writes to the Herald asking where his great-grandfather's statue went.
1988 – The new Federation Pavilion by Alexander Tzannes is built over the Commonwealth Stone.
27 April 1996 – Premier Bob Carr unveils Alan Somerville's bronze Parkes on the old pedestal.
7 April 2005 – The restored griffins return.
2006–2007 – Sandra Faulkner's Column 8 appeals, and the statue is found.
7 February 2011 – Dickens, with a new head, is unveiled by Governor Marie Bashir on his 199th birthday.

The restored Charles Dickens statue at Dickens Drive and Loch Avenue, Centennial Park. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Park Made for Statues

Before it was a park, this was the Lachlan Swamps, Sydney's water supply. From 1827 to 1837 convict gangs dug Busby's Bore, a tunnel about 3.6 kilometres long that ran from what is now Busby's Pond, near the Lang Road entrance, all the way to Hyde Park. When the Nepean scheme took over in the 1880s, the old water reserve was turned into a grand park for the colony's centenary. Charles Moore of the Botanic Gardens and his head gardener James Jones laid it out, with the unemployed doing much of the digging, apparently following ideas of engineer Frederick Franklin, a student of Sir Joseph Paxton. Sir Henry Parkes opened it on 26 January 1888.

Parkes took a keen interest in the statuary. In the European picturesque style, statues were placed at intersections and along the drives to catch the eye, and Centennial Parklands says the original scheme had 31 of them. Subjects ran from classical allegories and mythology to statesmen and writers. In the end, as you'll see, most have been lost.

The Busby's Bore memorial in Centennial Park, marking where Sydney's second water supply began. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The stand pipe for Busby's Bore near Elizabeth and Market Streets, Hyde Park, in 1857. The water came from the swamps that became Centennial Park. Charles Woolcott (attrib.), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A 1919 map of Busby's Bore from <i>Building</i> magazine

A 1919 map of Busby's Bore from Building magazine. Unknown draftsperson. Published in Building, Vol. 23, No.138, on page 84, in an, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A section of wooden pipe from Busby's Bore, now in the Powerhouse Museum. Mx. Granger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Busbys Pond in Centennial Park, near the head of the old bore. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Dickens – The Statue That Came Home

The Dickens statue is the star of my original post, so here is the rest of its story. Centennial Parklands thinks it was carved by Job Hanson and set up about 1891 at the corner of Parkes and Hamilton Drives. In 1897 it was moved to make way for Sir Henry Parkes. The Botanic Gardens report of 1898 said Dickens went to "a scarcely inferior site in the park, near the centre", a spot "much frequented by the public". A 1935 plan shows that Loch Avenue was then called Dickens Road.

Not everyone was happy. Dickens wrote in his will, "I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever." In March 1893 the Premier, Sir George Dibbs, was asked about it in Parliament. He said the statue had been put up by the previous government, and taking it down would cost too much on top of putting it up. So Dickens stayed.

He stood there for about 74 years. In the early 1970s, after vandalism, he went into storage. The Melbourne branch of the Dickens Fellowship traced him to the basement of T. A. Taylor and Sons in Rozelle. Cedric Dickens, the novelist's great-grandson, had written to the Herald about him in March 1986. Then came the question that set it all off again. Gaenor Vallack saw a picture of the statue in Edwin Wilson's book The Wishing Tree and asked "Where is that beautiful statue?" Sandra Faulkner, then president of the NSW Dickens Society, wrote to Column 8 in November 2006. There was no answer until the appeal ran again in February 2007. Then Geoff Hearn wrote in to say the statue had been "placed into protective custody by the Royal Botanic Gardens", adding: "he lost his head".

The Herald's 2011 report adds that the body was finally recovered from the backyard of a house at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, and nobody has said exactly how it got there. Faulkner didn't think the head was stolen by university pranksters. She thought it had been cut off "with a clean cut" to be restored one day. Either way, the head has never turned up. The scroll, the quill and the little finger of the right hand were missing too.

In 2008 the Botanic Gardens Trust offered the statue back. The NSW Public Works stoneyard at Alexandria, led by Paul Thurloe and Ruben Varfi, worked from old photographs. It took three tries over twelve months to find a block of Bianco P Carrara marble that matched. They gave him a new head, flowing beard and all, plus a new finger, scroll and quill. Some experts compared it to giving the Venus de Milo new arms. On 7 February 2011, his 199th birthday, Governor Marie Bashir unveiled him back at Dickens Drive and Loch Avenue. She remembered visiting him as a girl. As Faulkner put it, "the Boz is back in Oz".

Charles Dickens in Centennial Park, with his new head carved by the NSW Public Works team. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Dickens statue on its pedestal at the corner of Dickens Drive and Loch Avenue. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Dickens about 1868, from a photograph by Gurney. Photographs like this guided the carvers when they rebuilt his head. From a photograph by Gurney, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sunrise and Sunset – The Two That Never Left

In the Rose and Column Gardens, near Busby's Pond, two terracotta women stand on top of nine-metre Corinthian sandstone columns. "Sunrise" is a woman with a baby boy on a half orb, and "Sunset" is a life-size woman cloaked from head to foot. Villeroy & Boch, the Luxembourg pottery firm, made them in 1888. Centennial Parklands says they are the only statues that have stayed on site the whole time. When the rest came down in 1971, these two were judged safe because they were so high up.

The fluted columns used to flank the front entrance of the William Street wing of the Australian Museum. James Barnet designed that building, and he also designed the park's Superintendent's Residence.

The Column Garden, where "Sunrise" and "Sunset" stand on columns salvaged from the Australian Museum. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the Villeroy & Boch figures of 1888 on top of its Corinthian sandstone column. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Column Garden figure against the evening sky. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Column Garden in the Rose Garden area near Busby's Pond. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sundial in the Column Garden, which reads "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Griffins of Paddington Gates

Two ceramic winged lions by Villeroy & Boch were put on Parkes Drive in the 1890s. They sat at the Hamilton Drive junction near the Parkes statue, guarding the road down from the Paddington Gates. By 1946 they had lost heads, wings and feet. They went to the depot in 1971, and after restoration they came back on their original sandstone plinths on 7 April 2005. Strictly speaking they aren't true griffins, which have an eagle's head and wings. These are winged lions, which Centennial Parklands calls "gryphonic".

One of the restored Villeroy & Boch winged lions ("griffins") on Parkes Drive. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The second griffin, back on its sandstone plinth since 2005. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Henry Parkes

It's only right that the father of the park stands in it. A memorial statue of Parkes went up in 1897, which is why Dickens had to move. Vandals damaged it, and in 1970 it was taken away. That attack led to a review of all the park's statues and the removal of any that were at risk. On 27 April 1996, the centenary of Parkes's death, Premier Bob Carr unveiled a new bronze by Alan Somerville on the original sandstone pedestal.

Alan Somerville's 1996 bronze of Sir Henry Parkes on the original 1897 pedestal. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Parkes statue near the Paddington Gates end of the park. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Henry Parkes and the second Lady Parkes in the 1890s, by John Hubert Newman. John Hubert Newman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"We Won" – The Footballer

In Cannon Triangle near Oxford Street stands "We Won", also called "The Footballer". It is by the Florentine sculptor Tommaso Sani, who lived in Leichhardt and caused a stir with his working-class figures on the Pitt Street front of the GPO. The life-size player wears a woollen cap, a sweater and tight knee-length trousers, but he has the calm classical face of Apollo. Around the bronze pedestal, a match is played by hordes of tiny putti, with four cherubs between the scenes. One of them wears the lion skin of Hercules. Graeme Sturgeon called it one of Sani's most important works. Centennial Parklands counts it with "Sunrise" and "Sunset" as one of three original statues that survive.

The Lost Statues

These are the ones we know about, according to Centennial Parklands and Randwick City Council's Our Story:

Four terracotta vases by Rhode and Andrea stood along Grand Drive near Parkes Drive from 1889. They were removed as damaged by 1917.
Benjamin Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, was "destroyed by accident" before 1946.
"Charity", on Grand Drive near today's kiosk, showed a woman holding one child with another at her skirt. It was taken down in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln, Garfield and "One More Shot" were removed and dumped in 1959 as too decayed.
"Diana the Huntress", in marble with sword and hound and thought to be by Hanson, stood in Cannon Triangle until 1971. She is now lost.

Centennial Parklands admits that many have "disappeared without a trace". It mentions rumours of night-time thefts and even of statues buried under the levee banks of the ponds during the First World War. As they say, if Dickens is anything to go by, time will tell some remarkable tales.

The Federation Pavilion

It isn't a statue, but it's the park's most important monument. On 1 January 1901, at a special pavilion in Centennial Park, Lord Hopetoun was sworn in and the Commonwealth of Australia was inaugurated before about 60,000 people. The temporary pavilion is gone, but the Commonwealth Stone marks the spot. In 1988 a permanent Federation Pavilion by Alexander Tzannes, shaped like a classical rotunda, was built over it. Around it runs a line from Bernard O'Dowd's 1901 sonnet "Australia": "Mammon or millennial Eden".

The Federation Pavilion in Centennial Park during the swearing-in ceremony on 1 January 1901. National Library of Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1901 Federation Pavilion, photographed by Talma Studio. Talma Studio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1901 swearing-in ceremony at the pavilion. NSW State Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Alexander Tzannes's Bicentennial Federation Pavilion of 1988, built over the Commonwealth Stone. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Federation Pavilion today. Sardaka (talk) 08:02, 17 November 2014 (UTC), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where to Find Them Today

Charles Dickens – at Dickens Drive and Loch Avenue.
Sunrise and Sunset – on the columns in the Rose and Column Gardens near Busby's Pond.
Griffins – on Parkes Drive at the Hamilton Drive junction, below the Paddington Gates.
Sir Henry Parkes – the 1996 bronze on the original pedestal near the same junction.
"We Won" – in Cannon Triangle near Oxford Street, with two cannon.
Federation Pavilion – in Federation Valley, over the Commonwealth Stone.
Busby's Bore memorial – near Busby's Pond and the Lang Road entrance.
Newer works include Gillian Smart's Hand Upon Hand on Banksia Way and Jane Cavanough's Duck Sculpture in the Wetlands Maze.

Where the Sources Disagree

How many statues? Centennial Parklands and Randwick's Our Story say 31 statues were planned or commissioned when the park opened. The Wikipedia/NSW heritage text says that by 1889 there were eleven statues and two vases.
How many survive? By my own count about nine statues and sculptures are in the park today. Centennial Parklands says only three of the original statues remain ("Sunrise", "Sunset" and "We Won"). Its list of surviving pieces also includes Dickens, the griffins and the Parkes pedestal, so the count depends on what you include.
One of two, or one of three? Monument Australia calls it one of only two life-size Dickens statues in the world. Centennial Parklands says one of three.
When was Dickens removed? 1972 according to the Herald, Randwick and one Parklands page. 1971 according to the same Parklands page ("stood for 74 years from 1897 until 1971"). Parkes went in 1970, and most of the rest followed in 1971.
Where was he found? Centennial Parklands says the Rozelle basement and then "protective custody" with the Botanic Gardens. Its overview page even says he was "discovered beheaded in … Rozelle". The Herald says the body was recovered from a backyard at Wentworth Falls.
When did he come back? The unveiling was on 7 February 2011 according to the Herald, Monument Australia and the Parklands Dickens page. The Parklands overview page says 2012.
Who designed the park? Wikipedia credits the park's design variously to Franklin, to J. W. Deering's plan, and to Moore with Lord Carrington and Parkes. It says "whose plan was finally used remains uncertain".

My Earlier Posts

Sources

Friday, March 13, 2020

The Tank Stream – Sydney – From Gadigal Water to Stormwater Drain

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page talks about Aboriginal people who have died, including a burial found beside the Tank Stream, and that some of the old pictures may show people who have died.

If you walk down Pitt Street from Martin Place towards the Quay, you're walking along a creek. You can't see it, you can't hear it, and most of the office workers stepping over it every morning have no idea it's there. But the Tank Stream is the reason Sydney sits where it does. It's the little run of fresh water that made Arthur Phillip pick Sydney Cove in January 1788, it gave the colony its first water supply, it got fouled within a generation, and it ended up as a stone and brick drain under the CBD. It still flows into the harbour at Circular Quay today.

I've written about it a few times over the years, so I've pulled all my Tank Stream posts together into this one page, with my old photos and words, and added a lot more history and pictures.

Tank Stream, Sydney, 1842, sepia watercolour by John Skinner Prout

The Tank Stream in 1842, painted by John Skinner Prout. By then the stream was already more drain than drinking water. John Skinner Prout, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before the Tanks: Gadigal Country and Warrane

Long before the First Fleet turned up, this little valley was Gadigal country. The Gadigal (also written Cadigal) are the people most commonly accepted as living around Sydney Cove, and the Tank Stream catchment gave them a bit of everything within a short walk: harbour, estuary, rock platform, creek, open forest and wetland. Sydney Water calls the area by its Aboriginal name, Warrane, and describes the Tank Stream as the main source of fresh water in the Warrane (Circular Quay) area. Nobody knows the stream's own Aboriginal name. The City of Sydney's Barani history site says plainly that it isn't known, but that the stream mattered as drinking water and for everything that grew along it.

Some of that history has survived two hundred years of building. In the late 1990s, archaeologists digging ahead of the Angel Place redevelopment, just north of Martin Place between Pitt and George Streets, found a small patch of soil that dated from before 1788. In it were 54 stone artefacts, most of them less than 2 cm long, the chips left over from making stone tools. As the Barani writers put it, Aboriginal people sat just metres from the Tank Stream and made their tools there. A few more artefacts turned up later further down the stream, along George Street, when the Ivy nightclub site was redeveloped.

People were buried along the stream too. More than a century before the Angel Place dig, workmen building additions to the General Post Office in Martin Place found an Aboriginal skull in the buried banks of the Tank Stream. The papers of the day called a hole in it a spear wound, but Barani notes it could have had a number of causes. What became of the skull isn't known. Back then it was common for Aboriginal remains to be collected or sold to museums and private collectors.

The Stream's Course: From the Swamp to the Cove

The Tank Stream rose in marshy ground roughly bounded by today's Elizabeth, Market, Pitt and Park Streets, just to the west of Hyde Park. According to W. V. Aird's 1961 history of Sydney's water supply, it soaked through the soil between Pitt and George Streets before forming a proper channel near King Street, then ran north to the cove. At high tide it met the harbour at what's now the corner of Bridge and Pitt Streets. Its whole catchment was about 65 hectares, roughly the size of the CBD itself.

You can still feel it in your legs. Barani points out that if you walk west from Macquarie Street down any of the cross streets, the road dips down to where the Tank Stream ran and then climbs again towards George Street. That dip is the valley the whole city is built in.

The stream also split the town in two. The eastern side was kept for the governor, government and administration, and the convicts lived on the western side, out towards the Rocks. That's why Bridge Street, where the crossing was, became the main link between east and west Sydney.

Circular Quay and the mouth of the Tank Stream, Sydney Cove, painted by Frederick Garling Jr. in 1839. Frederick Garling Jr., public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Watercolour view of the Tank Stream, about 1842

A View of Tank Stream, an unknown artist's watercolour from about 1842. Unknown artist, State Library of New South Wales, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

1788: "Near the Run of Fresh Water"

The colony was meant to go to Botany Bay, on the say-so of Sir Joseph Banks, who'd been there with Cook in 1770. When the fleet got there, Phillip found no decent fresh water, so he took boats north looking for something better and found Port Jackson. Cook had sailed past it and named it in 1770 but never gone in.

David Collins, the colony's judge-advocate, wrote the line everyone quotes. The governor's party anchored off the cove on the evening of the 25th of January 1788, and the spot chosen for the camp "was at the head of the cove, near the run of fresh water, which stole silently along through a very thick wood, the stillness of which had then, for the first time since the creation, been interrupted by the rude sound of the labourer's axe".

Collins also gives us the first bridge. In October 1788 "a gang of convicts were employed in rolling timber together, to form a bridge over the stream at the head of the cove". That crossing is where Bridge Street got its name, which Governor Macquarie made official in 1810.

From My 2020 Post: The Tank Stream – Sydney

When Arthur Phillip First Saw What Is Now Circular Quay & The Freshwater Estuary That Ran Into The Quay, He Must’ve Sighed One Of The Biggest Sighs Of Relief, After Being Let Down With What He’d Been Told About Botany Bay, & That The Land Was Fertile.
Once the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay, Arthur Phillip was left with no choice but to get in a smaller boat & search the coast to the north, & that’s how they came upon Port Jackson, which had been marked on Captain Cook’s chart from 1770.

The Watercourse Named The Tank Stream Was An Important Source Of Fresh Water For Aboriginal People Before European Settlement. As The 19th Century Progressed & The Population Of Sydney Grew, The Tank Stream Was First Polluted & Then Channeled & Diverted Underground Into A Series Of Drains & Pipes.
Fifty Four Worked Stone Artefacts Were Discovered In The Late 1990s During Excavations For The Construction Of The City Recital Hall At Angel Place Which Was Built Above A Section Of The Tank Stream.
This Discovery Shows That Aboriginal People Sat Just Metres From The Stream Making Stone Tools.

From My 2016 Post: Tank Stream Bridge & Head of Sydney Cove

Bridge Street, Northern Side, Between George And Pitt Streets

In October 1788 A Timber bridge was built to span the tank stream at this spot, which was then The Head Of Sydney Cove. In 1803–1804 the structure was replaced by a stone bridge.

When Governor Phillip inspected Port Jackson in January 1788 he was induced to start a settlement there because Of A Rivulet At The Head Of Sydney Cove Where Wild celery parsley & spinach flourished - healthy vegetables for scurvy patients. A Swampy Spring near the western edge of Today's Hyde Park, Was The Birthplace Of This Rivulet, which fell 100 feet as it wandered Eastward Over sandstone Rocks To King Street. Then nourished by two springs, one at King Street and another at Spring Street It Flowed to Bridge Street The Head Of The tidal estuary.

To save the life stream, Governor Phillip in March 1788 wisely decreed that

"the run of water which supplies the settlement was observed to be only a drain from the swamp. To protect it from the sun, the governor forbids the cutting down of any tree within 50 feet of the run, than which there has not been a finer found in any one of the coves of the harbour."

In February 1791 surveyor Alt deepened the stream Near Bridge Street and in April 1792 the governor had ditches dug flanking the rivulet. A paling fence was erected to keep out stock and cherish the shrubs growing on its Bank.

The Rivulet was christened the tank stream in May 1792 after his Excellency had convicts Hew a tank from sandstone which held 8000 gallons of water.

Bridge Street where the Tank Stream turned into the tidal waters Of Sydney Cove became the main link between East and West Sydney. Collins in October 1788 stated that a gang of convicts were employed in rolling timber together to form a bridge over the stream at the head of the Cove. Soon footbridges spanned the rushing waters, followed later by a circular [arched?] bridge. Alas, an overloaded bullock wagon broke through the decking and put the bridge out of action.

The Tanks That Gave the Stream Its Name

The Tank Stream was never much of a river. In dry weather it couldn't keep up, and the early 1790s were dry. So the governor had tanks cut into the sandstone beside the stream to hold water in reserve, and that's where the name comes from.

Collins tells the story as it happened. In late 1791, with the dry weather hurting the water supply, the governor "employed the stone-mason's gang to cut tanks out of the rock, which would be reservoirs for the water large enough to supply the settlement for some time". Then in May 1792 he records that "a tank that would contain about seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-six gallons of water, with a well in the centre fifteen feet deep, was finished, and the water let into it". That's the "8000 gallons" in my older posts.

The State Heritage Register puts the cutting of the tanks in 1790, says there were three or four of them, and gives each one about 20,000 litres and 5 metres deep. The City of Sydney's old water history says three tanks were built during a drought in 1790. Aird places one at what's now the corner of Pitt and Spring Streets, and the other two in Bond Street on the other side of the stream. None of them is thought to have survived. The stretch between Hunter and Bond Streets, where they were, is now a stone arch and a 1962 concrete box under Australia Square.

Keeping the water clean was a battle from day one. Phillip had the stream fenced against stock as early as 1791, and later trenches were cut alongside it to catch the dirty runoff before it got in. The heritage listing says that in 1795 orders were made against grazing stock or cutting trees within about 15 metres of the stream. Collins records that early in 1796 the governor had to repeat in public orders that "when an order was given by him, it was given to be obeyed", because people kept opening the paling fence and dipping dirty vessels in the water above the tanks, "thereby disturbing and polluting the whole stream below".

From My 2015 Post: Tank Stream - Macquarie Street To Circular Quay

In October 1788, a timber bridge was built to span the Tank Stream at this spot, which was then the head of Sydney Cove. In 1803–1804 the structure was replaced by a stone bridge.

When Governor Phillip inspected Port Jackson in January 1788 he was induced to start a settlement there because of the rivulet at The Head Of Sydney Cove, where wild celery, parsley and spinach flourished – healthy vegetables for scurvy patients. A swampy spring, near the western edge of today's Hyde Park, was the birthplace of this rivulet which fell 100 feet As it wandered Eastward over sandstone rocks to King Street. Then, nourished by two springs, one at King Street and another at Spring Street, it flowed to Bridge Street, the head of the tidal estuary.

To save the life stream, Governor Phillip in March 1788 wisely decreed that "the run of water which supplies the settlement was observed to be only a drain from the swamp. To protect it from the sun, the governor forbids the cutting down of any tree within 50 feet of the run, than which there has not been a finer found in any one of the coves of the harbour."

In February 1791 surveyor Alt deepened the stream near Bridge Street, and in April 1792 the governor had ditches dug flanking The Rivulet. A Paling fence was erected to keep out stock and cherish the shrubs growing on its banks. The rivulet was christened the tank stream in May 1792 after his Excellency had convicts hew a tank from sandstone which held 8000 gallons of water. Bridge St where the tank stream debouched into the tidal waters of Sydney Cove, became the main link between eastern and western Sydney. Collins in October 1788 Stated that a gang Of convicts were employed in rolling timber together to form a bridge over the stream at the head of the Cove. Soon footbridges spanned the [unfinished – John to complete]

From Drinking Water to Open Sewer

As the town grew, so did the mess. More houses, more animals, more cleared land and fewer trees meant more runoff, and it carried human and animal waste and household rubbish straight into the stream. Aird says it was little more than an open sewer for about ten years before it was finally abandoned as a water supply in 1826. The heritage listing says Governor Brisbane disallowed it for drinking that year, and that Governor Darling had seven wells dug around the town and people put to work fixing the drains.

The answer to the water problem was Busby's Bore, John Busby's tunnel carrying water from the Lachlan Swamps (now Centennial Park) to Hyde Park. Convicts started digging it in September 1827. It began supplying drinkable water in 1830 but wasn't finished until 1837.

The standpipe for Busby's Bore near the corner of Elizabeth and Market Streets, Hyde Park, in 1857. The Bore took over from the Tank Stream as the town's water supply. Attributed to Charles Woolcott, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A section of wooden pipe from Busby's Bore, on display at the Powerhouse Museum. Mx. Granger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

With the drinking water gone elsewhere, the Tank Stream became the town's drain. The heritage listing says it was an unofficial sewer by 1826 and an official one by 1857, emptying straight into the harbour at the Quay. Around 1850, when Semi-Circular Quay was built, the stream had to be extended north of Bridge Street to reach the new waterline. The swamp that fed it was drained around 1850, according to a 1953 Sunday Herald article cited by Wikipedia, and the new Bennelong sewer works of 1857 drained it further. With less clean water flushing it, the Tank Stream got even filthier. Until 1888 it also carried salt water, which the council stored in reservoirs for cleaning the streets and keeping down the dust.

"The Old Tank Stream, Sydney", an engraving published in 1873, looking back to the days before it was covered over. Booth (1873), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1860s Drain and the Stormwater Channel

The smell is what finally got the stream covered. In the late 1850s work started on roofing the Bridge Street to Hunter Street section, and the sandstone arch over it was built in 1860. The heritage listing describes the channel as part stone and part brick in its lower half, with a sandstone arch roof. In 1866 the section from just south of Hunter Street to Martin Place was built as an open stone channel, and it was roofed over in the 1870s. Through the late 1870s the City Council kept going. A brick egg-shaped ("oviform") sewer went in from Pitt Street to Bridge Street in 1878, through what had been private land, and in 1879 the Bridge to Hunter Street floor was relaid in mortar with a terracotta scouring channel down the middle. By 1880 brick had reached the full width of King Street.

What's down there now is a patchwork of almost two hundred years of plumbing. According to the heritage listing, the old fabric survives from King Street, between Pitt and George, all the way to Circular Quay. There are 1866 brick drains enclosed in 1876 near King Street and between Martin Place and Angel Place. A historic oviform sewer runs towards the old GPO. Under Australia Square there's a semicircular stone arch with a shallow V-shaped floor, then a concrete box put in when the Square was built in 1962. Between Abercrombie Lane and Bridge Street there's a stone arch from about 1860. From Bridge Street the stream turns to run under Pitt Street for the last 185 metres to the Quay. A lot of the channel was replaced with modern pipe after the Second World War, when little thought went into its history, under the GPO in 1940, behind Pitt Street in 1958 and 1962, at Australia Square in 1965, at the old GPO site in 2001 and at Angel Place in 2002.

Today the Tank Stream is a stormwater channel looked after by Sydney Water, and it's on the NSW State Heritage Register, listed on 2 April 1999. Between 2024 and 2027 Sydney Water is restoring the old culvert under First Fleet Park at Circular Quay, and for a while you could actually see a bit of it from the street.

A brick-lined section of the Tank Stream, photographed on a tour in November 2008. Shermozle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside the Tank Stream on a November 2008 tour. Shermozle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney Water's restoration works at First Fleet Park, Circular Quay, in June 2026, when a rare stretch of the Tank Stream culvert was opened to view. Aebion, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Tank Stream Way

Up above, the stream has left its name on a little laneway off Bridge Street. The heritage listing says the 40-metre stretch of channel between Abercrombie Lane and Bridge Street is a stone arch from about 1860, and that "on the ground here, Tank Stream Way preserves the name of the stream". Here's what I wrote about it in my laneways series.

From My 2020 Post: Tank Stream Way - Laneways - Sydney - NSW

Tank Stream Way Was Once Part Of Hamilton Street Which Ran Between Bridge And Hunter Streets, Named After Hamilton's Biscuit Factory. Most Of It Disappeared Underneath The Australia Square Development, Leaving Two Remnant Laneways, And This Section Was Renamed In 1981. In Bridge Lane, Once The Site Of The Town’s First Lumber Yards, Look For The Old Warehouse Doorway, Now The Entrance To The Establishment Hotel. As Late As The 1860s There Was Still Vacant Land Sliced Between The Cottages In This Area, But By The End Of The 19th Century It Had Become A Favoured Location for Warehouses, Including Several Tea Merchants Stores.

Tank Stream Way seen from the south-east, April 2024. Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

You can read the whole laneway post here: Tank Stream Way - Laneways - Sydney - New South Wales.

The Tank Stream Fountain

The best-known memorial to the stream is down at Herald Square, on the corner of George and Alfred Streets near Circular Quay. The Tank Stream Fountain is a cascading fountain by the sculptor Stephen Walker, with four bronze columns rising out of the pool. All over it are Australian plants and animals, frogs, snakes, goannas, echidnas, crabs, birds and tortoises, that look like they're playing in the water. The kids love it, which is the whole idea. It's also known as the Children's Fountain, dedicated to "all the children who have played around the Tank Stream".

The fountain was a present from John Fairfax & Sons, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, to mark 150 years since the first Sydney Herald came out on 18 April 1831. The City of Sydney accepted the offer on 25 June 1979. It was the biggest private gift the city had ever had at that point. The council was already planning to tidy up the streetscape, so the extra work went onto its existing contract with Melocco Bros. The extra landscaping cost $356,154.50, subsidised down to $183,495.50, and the paper matched that and paid for the sculpture as well. The Lord Mayor dedicated the fountain on 16 April 1981.

Walker's brief from Fairfax was "to create an association of water and bronze", and he tied it to the Tank Stream, the settlement's first water supply. Walker was born in Melbourne in 1927, studied painting in Melbourne and Hobart, and started making sculpture in 1952. In the 1950s and 60s he studied in England, Rome, Florence and Prague before coming home in 1964. The fountain is heritage-listed in its own right, and the City of Sydney started cleaning and conserving the bronzes in September 2026, with the work expected to take about two months.

The Tank Stream Fountain in Herald Square, by Stephen Walker, 1981. Whiteghost.ink, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Close up, the native animals look like they're playing in the pools. Whiteghost.ink, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A bronze lizard on the fountain. Tony Hisgett, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The fountain in 2012. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Herald Square, with the fountain at its centre, in 2023. -wuppertaler, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another view of the fountain and its bronze creatures, 2023. -wuppertaler, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Plaques, the Tours and Where to See It

The fountain carries its own plaques. One, on the western front, explains how Walker drew on the spot's history. Another says the fountain and the landscaping of the square were donated "for the pleasure and enjoyment of citizens and visitors" by John Fairfax & Sons. The City of Sydney's record of the inscriptions includes a little potted history that starts with 1788: "A stream flows into Sydney Cove. The European settlement of Australia begins along its sandstone banks. Soon drought strikes and storage tanks are carved from the stone, hence the name."

The fountain and one of its plaques, 2018. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque near the fountain commemorating the Tank Stream, which gave the first European settlement its water. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you want to actually get down there, Sydney Living Museums and Sydney Water have run Tank Stream tours, usually in April and November. Tickets are limited and handed out by ballot, so you need a bit of luck. The way in is through the basement of the Australia Square tower, which is also Sydney Water's inspection point, and there's an information area behind locked gates at the start of the tour. If you miss out, Barani says there's a small Tank Stream exhibition in the basement of the old General Post Office in Martin Place, with an excavated piece of the original brick oviform drain. You go in directly under the clock tower. Otherwise just follow the street names, the artwork and the pub names, and the dip in the road, from Hunter Street down Pitt Street to the Quay.

Timeline

Before 1788 – Gadigal people use the stream for water and resources; stone tools are made on its banks (Angel Place site).
January 1788 – The First Fleet moves from Botany Bay to Sydney Cove; the camp is set up "near the run of fresh water".
October 1788 – Convicts roll timber together to form the first bridge over the stream at the head of the cove.
1790 – The heritage listing and the City of Sydney date the cutting of the tanks to a 1790 drought.
1791 – The stream is fenced against stock; Collins says the stonemasons were cutting tanks in late 1791.
May 1792 – Collins records a tank of about 7,996 gallons, with a well 15 feet deep, finished and filled.
1795–96 – Orders against grazing and tree-cutting near the stream; people still fouling the water above the tanks.
1803–04 – A stone bridge replaces the timber one at Bridge Street (according to my older posts).
1810 – Macquarie names Bridge Street.
1826 – The stream is abandoned as drinking water; Darling has seven wells dug.
1827–1837 – Busby's Bore is built; it supplies water from 1830.
c.1850 – Semi-Circular Quay is built and the stream is extended north of Bridge Street; the source swamp is drained.
1857 – The Tank Stream becomes an official sewer.
1860 – The sandstone arch between Bridge and Hunter Streets is built.
1866–1880 – Open stone and brick channels are built and roofed over; brick oviform sewers go in.
1888 – Salt water stops being carried in the stream for street cleaning.
1962–1965 – Concrete box replaces the channel under Australia Square; tour access is built there.
16 April 1981 – The Tank Stream Fountain is dedicated in Herald Square; Hamilton Street's remnant becomes Tank Stream Way the same year.
Late 1990s – The Angel Place dig finds 54 Aboriginal stone artefacts beside the stream.
2 April 1999 – The Tank Stream is added to the NSW State Heritage Register.
2024–2027 – Sydney Water restores the culvert under First Fleet Park.
September 2026 – Conservation work starts on the fountain's bronzes.

Where the Sources Disagree

When the tanks were cut: the State Heritage Register and the City of Sydney say 1790. Collins has the stonemasons cutting tanks in late 1791 and the first one finished in May 1792. My older posts say the stream was "christened" in May 1792.
How big the tanks were: Collins gives about 7,996 gallons for the May 1792 tank, which is roughly 36,000 litres. The heritage listing gives about 20,000 litres for each of three or four tanks. These may not be measuring the same thing.
How many tanks there were: the City of Sydney and Aird say three, and the heritage listing says three or four.
The stone bridge: my older posts date the stone bridge at Bridge Street to 1803–04. The heritage listing (as quoted on Wikipedia) says a stone arch bridge replaced the wooden ones in 1792, and its own timeline lists the "first bridge crossing" in 1792, even though Collins describes a timber bridge in October 1788.
When it stopped being drinking water: Aird says it was abandoned in 1826 after about ten years as an open sewer, and the heritage listing has Brisbane disallowing it in 1826 but says it was the main source of fresh water until Busby's Bore was finished in 1837.
Busby's Bore: Aird (as cited on Wikipedia) dates the next supply to 1830, when the Bore started giving water, and the heritage listing says the Tank Stream was the main supply until the Bore was finished in 1837.
Tree-cutting order: my older posts quote an order of March 1788 against cutting trees within 50 feet of the stream. The heritage listing has the order in 1795, at about 15 metres. I couldn't find the 1788 wording in a source I could open.
The Angel Place dig: my 2020 post says 1996. Barani says the late 1990s, and the University of Sydney catalogues the reports as the "Angel Place Project 1997".

My Earlier Posts

Sources

David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 (1798), Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12565
NSW State Heritage Register, Tank Stream (SHR 00636), as reproduced in Wikipedia, "Tank Stream" (CC BY): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Stream
W. V. Aird, The Water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage of Sydney (MWS&DB, 1961), as cited in Wikipedia, "Tank Stream"
City of Sydney, "Tank Stream Fountain": https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/fountains-and-water-features/tank-stream-fountain
Paul Irish and Tamika Goward, "The Tank Stream", Sydney Barani (City of Sydney): https://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/the-tank-stream/
Sydney Water, "Circular Quay Tank Stream work": https://www.sydneywater.com.au/water-the-environment/what-we-are-doing/projects-in-your-area/circular-quay-pump-station-and-tank-stream-work.html
Wikipedia, "Busby's Bore": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busby%27s_Bore
Wikipedia, "Bridge Street, Sydney": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_Street,_Sydney
Wikipedia, "Port Jackson": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Jackson
University of Sydney Library, Godden Mackay, Angel Place Project 1997 Archaeological Excavation Final Report, Vol. 1 (1998): https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/9364
Pictures: Wikimedia Commons, Category:Tank Stream and Category:Busby's Bore (credits under each picture)

Friday, June 17, 2016

The Centennial Park Eel

The Centennial Park Eel

THE CENTENNIAL PARK EEL

In the Ponds Of Centennial Park Lives The Eastern (???? ) Eel. And To The Normal Park Goer They Look Like An Ugly Animal Swimming Around In The Murky Waters Of The Parklands.

But The Centennial Park Eels Hold A Remarkable Story For Those In The Know.

Male Eels Mature Around 10- 30 years and Female Eels Mature Around 8 Years. When They Reach Adult Stage & Feel The Need Spawn & AmazingThing Happens.

The eels Hop From Pond To Pond and then crawl Through a drain Underneath Alison Road and into Randwick Racecourse. They then follow the Natural Watercourse Through To The Moore Park Golf Course and then Follow it Through To Botany Bay Coming Out Where The Third Sydney Runway Comes Out at Kingsford Smith Airport.

While Making This Journey some Amazing Changes Happen To Their Bodies......

- their Dorsal Fin Becomes bigger So They Are Able To Swim Better In Ocean Currents.

- their stomach shrinks

- Their Eyes Also Change SizeThat They Can See In The Seawater

- their anus Restricts and Any Orifice To Reduce Water Loss

- Their Gills

From Freshwater To Saltwater. They Can Also Out In Fresh Air, And If There Is No Watercourse For Them To Make It To Botany Bay They Can travel Across Land for short distances.

The Eels Then Make A 3,500 Mile Journey through The Ocean To Somewhere Near New Caledonia, where They Spawn Their Young & Die.

These Young Eels Then Male Their Way The 3,500 Miles Back To Centennial Park Where They Live In The Ponds Until They Mature