The Surry Hills water reservoir better known as Crown Street Reservoir (Sydney Water WS 0034) is a covered brick service reservoir on the block bounded by Crown, Reservoir, Riley and Campbell Streets. Designed under City Engineer Edward Bell (with Will Wadsworth) and built in 1857–59 by contractors including Donohoe and Vaughan, it formed a key node of the Botany Swamps water scheme: water was pumped from Botany to Crown Street, and later also toward Paddington Reservoir (1864).
The underground chambers use imported waterproof bricks, hardwood columns and a fire-proof jack-arch roof beneath a turfed top — a landmark of mid-Victorian water engineering. Crown Street Reservoir is widely described as the oldest water-supply reservoir still in continuous operation in Australia (Yan Yean in Victoria is slightly earlier but an earth dam). It later took supply from the Upper Nepean scheme and today from the Warragamba system while still serving the inner city. The site, owned by Sydney Water, is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register and includes later pumping-station and workshop fabric.
Photographs here show the Crown Street / Reservoir Street precinct and surviving above-ground works of the Surry Hills reservoir site.
The Surry Hills Water Reservoir formed part of the infrastructure that helped supply Sydney as the city expanded in the nineteenth century. Its substantial masonry construction reflects the engineering works built to store and distribute water across the growing city.
