Walka Water Works

Walka Water Works is a 19th-century pumping station located near Maitland, New South Wales, Australia. Originally built in 1887 to supply water to Newcastle and the lower Hunter Valley, it has since been restored and preserved and is part of Maitland City Council's Walka Recreation and Wildlife Reserve.HistoryWaterworksDuring the early 1880s, with a growing population in Newcastle, the NSW Government commenced construction of the Walka Waterworks to provide a safer water supply to the Newcastle, Maitland, Morpeth and Cessnock districts than existing storage tanks, creeks and boreholes. It was largely complete by 1887 at a cost of £170,000.The design for the complex was undertaken by notable English engineer Sir William Clark and was a major engineering project for the area at the time. Water was pumped from the Hunter River to a reservoir along a brick tunnel approximately 6ft in diameter and 9m below ground. At full operation, it had three pumping engines (150 hp each and with a flywheel weighing 36 tonnes), two horizontal compound pumps and a triple expansion surface condensing pump engine. Water would be pumped from the river at Oakhampton up to the Walka reservoir (still visible as the Walka lake today), then pumped onwards to another reservoir 6mi away at Buttai; where it was "gravitationally distributed".