Swimming in the Cattle Tank and Reservoir

Located in Allman Street, Campbelltown are the historic Cattle Tank and Reservoir. Both were constructed and completed by convict labour in the 1830s. They were regarded as necessary as water supply was a constant problem for both farmers and townspeople living in Campbelltown.

Both the Cattle Tank and Reservoir appear mostly to have had an ample supply of water, even during droughts. So of course one can imagine how alluring they were to the locals on a sweltering Campbelltown day. An interesting photograph in our collection is of "Jack's Day"- a regatta held at the site in 1917. It shows a crowd of people gathered around the Reservoir and a couple of local lads cooling off in the water. The newspaper reported "A band of 20 performers headed a procession from the railway station to Hurley Park, where juvenile sports and aquatic displays in the once tabooed reservoir exhilarated spectators".

The Cattle Tank has also been the scene of drowning tragedies over the years. In 1925 seven year old Leniel Johnson drowned after she accidently fell in while playing with her sister. She had been in the water for 20 minutes before she was found but couldn't be revived. Ten years later sixteen year old Betty Humphreys drowned. She had been suffering a nervous breakdown according to the 'Campbelltown News' and ran from her home in Allman Street and jumped in the Cattle Tank. Despite attempts from a young boy named Jack Hadden, she was unable to be revived. The newspaper mentions a mass of tangled wire and rubbish under the water so the days of a clean place to swim appear to be gone by then.

I interviewed both Jim Summers and David Milliken and they described their experiences of swimming in the Cattle Tank when they were boys. Jim, who was born in 1929, recalls his days of swimming there: "we used to swim in those and when I was a kid they were always full of water. We used to catch fish and eels in the smaller one on the bottom side. The tanks would dry up and you could walk in them. Then they would fill up and the fish and eels would be back, they must stay under the mud." He also went on to explain how there used to be a creek that ran down from the tanks in Allman Street. It ran down to Oxley Street and came out in Dumaresq Street. In the late 1930s council, worried about flooding from the Reservoir and tank, decided to drain water from them. Only a year earlier however, there were plans to convert the Cattle Tank into a 'glorified swimming hole', with preliminary estimates of the cost put at 400 pounds for cleaning out and concreting the tank, plus 5 pounds per refill. The proposal was eventually dropped in the late 1930's after another expert calculated a more realistic cost of 2500 pounds for the conversion.

David Milliken described swimming in there as a kid with whatever was underneath! "Every now and again you would get a bite on your foot from a yabby."

The Cattle Tank continued to be used to water stock as late as 1960. By the early 1960s, both the Reservoir and Cattle Tank were all but dry. Subsequent earthworks for a playing field at the top of Hurley Park radically changed the topography of the site. Although dried out today, both catchments continue to provide recreational facilities for nearby residents- albeit in the form of a cricket pitch or sunken volleyball arena.

 

The photograph above shows the regatta held on the cattle tank in 1917. Note the young boy in the water.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

PEDDELL, Wendy
Conservation Plan Stage 1: Campbelltown Reservoir and Cattle Tank

Campbelltown Water Supply and Cattle Tank: A Conservation Plan

Interviews with Jim Summers and David Milliken held at Campbelltown Library

The Upper Canal

The Upper Canal photographed in the 1980s (Macarthur Development Board)

You may have noticed when driving along Narellan Road heading towards Mount Annan a long drain type structure. This is actually a canal or water race known as the Upper Canal. It is a system of aqueducts, tunnels and open canals which enable water diverted through the Nepean Tunnel to flow a distance of 64kms to the major distribution reservoir at Prospect. The canal runs along the western boundary of the Campbelltown Local Government Area.

Construction of the canal was carried out from 1880 and completed in 1888. It relies on gravity to divert water, so it was a remarkable feat of the time and functions today much as it did more than 100 years ago.

The canal is 3.7 metres wide and 2.5 metres deep and relies on natural sandstone bedding, lined where necessary with sandstone rubble or cement, and with brick in the shale country nearer Campbelltown.

Campbelltown welcomed the building of the canal in the 1880s as it provided employment for local men and income for shopkeepers, carriers and tradespeople. It also added to the town's population. Another benefit was to the town's water supply. It was the first town to receive water from the system.

According to former Campbelltown resident and St Gregory's College student Ted Sedgwick the water race claimed the lives of a number of students from the college. (see update below) Attracted by the prospect of a refreshing swim on a sweltering day the victims underestimated the freezing temperatures of the water and tragically drowned in the canal. Mr Sedgwick also remembered how the canal became a potential threat during the Second World War. Authorities were concerned that the water supply could be sabotaged by the enemy. This lead to mounted guards patrolling the canal for a period of time.

The canal is still in use today. There have been threats over the years to the structure, particularly from longwall mining near Appin. It has local heritage listing and is classified by the National Trust (NSW).

*Update: Further research has revealed the names of the people drowned in the water race. Harry Miggins was drowned in it in 1948 and Graeme Cook from Randwick in 1958. Another person was saved, the wife of the racekeeper, who overbalanced into the water and was found by a day student clinging to a crack in the wall, a short distance from the inlet to the tunnel.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

LISTON, Carol
Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History, 1988

Macarthur Advertiser, Dec 5, 2007 p28

AIRD, W.V
The Water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage of Sydney, 1961

BOYLE, Valens
Pioneering Days: St, Gregory's, Campbelltown 1923-1951, 1987