Where In Melbourne Puzzle: Where in Melbourne puzzle

Welcome, this is the Osca Monthly Where in Melbourne Puzzle page.

THIS PUZZLE HAS BEEN REVEALED

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY

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Clue 1

Clue 1
The building of this structure in 1897 at a cost of £3.5 million provided a much needed boost to local industry and employment at a time when Victoria was gripped by a major economic recession.

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Clue 2

Clue 2
This building formed a part of vital infrastructure
without which Melbourne could not have grown into a metropolis.
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Clue 3

Clue 3
One of the locations for the filming of Mad Max.
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Clue 4

Clue 4
For all the grandeur that was ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ in the 1880s, the city was nicknamed ‘Smellbourne’.

An appalling stench wafted from the many cesspits and open drains.

‘Nightsoil’ (as human waste was politely referred to) polluted the streets and ran into the Yarra.

Hundreds died in a savage outbreak of typhoid.

Something had to be done!

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THE SOLUTION

The picture is of the old MMBW pumping station buildings at Spotswood,
adjacent to Scienceworks.

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Spotswood was named after J.S. Spottiswoode,
one of the first farmers who owned much of the area in the 1840s.

Spotswood Pumping station soon after completion.

The Spotswood Pumping Station was built in the 1890s as a key component of the Melbourne Sewerage Scheme. Functioning as the heart of the system, the pumping station played a vital role in helping to overcome the city's early public health and sanitation problems.

For almost 70 years from 1898, all the sewage collected in Melbourne's underground sewers passed through the pumps at Spotswood, on its way to the treatment works at Werribee.

Construction of the pumping station began in March 1894, with the local Footscray firm Messrs Garnsworthy & Smith being awarded the contract to prepare the site and foundations.

Their first task was to excavate a massive hole measuring 20 metres by 100 metres and almost 25 metres in depth - much of it was blasted out of solid basalt.

With the aid of steam cranes and a small steam locomotive, almost 25,500 cubic meters of broken rock and spoil were removed weighing around 70,000 tonnes.

Work progressed around the clock in continuous shifts with arc lamps providing illumination at night.

Brick and concrete lined tunnels for the inlet sewers, access tunnels, steel pipes and twelve large elliptical pump wells formed the heart of the pumping station.

Built by Thompson's Foundry, the steel pipes had to be huge.

Thompson's Foundry still exists today as Thompsons Kelly & Lewis Engineering Works.

The building of Spotswood Pumping Station was completed in 1897.

Steam engines (later replaced by electrical ones) worked to pump the sewage up a rising main to join the major sewer outfall at the head of the pumping mains near Millers Road at Brooklyn.

Former Shift Engineer Geoffrey Archer revisits his former workplace

and shares some stories of his working life at the Pumping Station.

The outfall sewer then carried the sewage to the Werribee Treatment Farm where it was purified and discharged into the sea.

Managed today by Western Treatment Plant, the original Werribee Treatment Farm has grown to encompass some 10,500 hectares and treats more than half of Melbourne's sewage.

Satellite view of Western Treatment Plant.

The wetlands offer excellent bird-watching opportunities and are accessible to public.

An integrated ecosystem, the Western Treatment Plant generates renewable energy and produces approximately 40 billion litres of recycled water a year whilst being supporting a wetland haven for more than 280 species of birds.