07/02/2022. Caulfield Reservoir

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 Melbourne hasn't provided as many old infrastructure thrills as did Sydney, probably because we're living just a little further from the city.  This has its benefits of course: the suburbs here are leafy and green, with gracious houses on grassy blocks and no airplanes roaring overhead.  The trains scoot along an elevated train line, the trams terrify us as per normal for people not used to sharing with trams, the traffic is generally well-mannered and considerate, and any old infrastructure is suitably out of sight/mind.

Thus it was that with we were delighted to discover that the grand playground just up the road occupies the site of the old Caulfield Reservoir.  On 20th January 1883 The Leader in Melbourne reported on the plan to construct the reservoir in order to "ensure a fair average supply (of water) all the year through and obviate the state of affairs formerly existing of superabundance in winter and famine in summer months." Ah if only today's newspapers could elocute so eloquently...

Roughly 90 years later (that was the 70s, for the chronologically-challenged amongst you) the reservoir was decommissioned and in 2014 opened to the public as the Booran Reserve, retaining features of the original reservoir such as the perimeter walls, bluestone plinths, and central sluice structure.  Roger was so fascinated by the engineering nous needed to complete the project that I had to provide this link so that all you other engineers out there could hear what the fella in charge at the time had to say.

Remnant structures from the Reservoir.  The building not Roger, you ninnies!

 


 

We were very taken with the Booran Reserve and would have like to have a play on the climbing structure and in the water feature ourselves, but were constrained by fact that we were at least 50 years older than all the other playground users. 

 Just up the road in the other direction is the Caulfield Swimming Pool complex, now shut down due to the costly inconvenience of a bad leak. It doesn't quite have the historic gravitas of the Reservoir, but technically it still qualifies as infrastructure which, while not forgotten, is certainly suffering from a lack of attention and, according to the notices on the closed front door, is currently in limbo while a redevelopment plan navigates a heritage assessment. 

The abandoned complex offers great opportunities for photos...

...after all, who can resist a happy frog?

 



 


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