This week, Roy was thinking about how it would soon be getting warm and baby animals would be being born. This made him think about Australia's farming history, and how people were able to farm the land, raise animals and move them from place to place in such a hot and often dry land. Roy is always fascinated by the way in which people manipulated the land and the resources to allow farming to take place in Australia, and one of the places he finds most interesting is the Cattle Tank in Campbelltown. He thought this would be a perfect place to visit this week.
If you would like to visit the Reservoir and Cattle Tank it is located in Campbelltown, NSW, in Allman Street. You will need to find parking and walk into the large park area, where you will find the Cattle Tank and reservoir. There is plenty of room to have a picnic or kick a ball, and plenty of other things to see in the area too. The tanks are dry now, and you can explore them at your leisure. Any unsafe areas were fenced off when we visited.
In the early days of settlement in the area, Campbelltown had problems with its water supply. Most areas where people chose to settle had permanent streams of fresh, clean water, but Campbelltown did not. The people of Campbelltown recognised the problem and decided to build a reservoir to provide permanent water. They petitioned Governor Bourke to give them a land grant for the project and in 1834 a grant of 4 acres and 30 perches (about 1.64 hectares) was made. However, it wasn't until 1838 that building began and it would be two years before the project was completed. We think the work was carried out by convicts from the Liverpool Stockade, and this made the project not only one of the first joint projects between government and community, but the last in the district (perhaps even the state) to be built with convict labour! It was also the first attempt by an Australian community to conserve water in such a way, making it very significant.
The reservoir was built using the shape of the land. There is a natural rise in the area around the reservoir, which creates a 'tank' in the centre. A sandstone wall was built at one end of this to keep the water in, and you can still see this wall today. At the top of the wall, in the centre, there is a stone lined spillway which carried excess water from the reservoir to a tank on the other side. This tank has sloping slides and a wide sloping ramp leading into it and was used for watering cattle, hence it was called the Cattle Tank. The reservoir was only used until about 1880, when Campbelltown was connected to Sydney Water, but the Cattle Tank was used right up until 1960!
