Rock Water Catchment Area

History

(The following discusses the time when an important party, headed by the Premier, came to Cunderdin in May 1902. Note also at the end of the extract information on the GWS Caretaker's Cottage)- (ref; p-45 JP Stokes)

"...After touring the building (pumping station), the party moved to the 12 million gallon dam about three quarters of a mile south of the pumping station:

It was originally one of the big railway tanks constructed along the Yilgarn railway line. This tank has a fine catchment, draining as it does the Cunderdin Hills. When the party arrived at the dam it had 23 feet of water in it, representing 10,000,000 gallons. Mr Leake and Mr Rason walked along the jetty and got into the boat moored at ots end and had a pull on the fine freah water lake..."

As indicated above, Cunderdin Hill was associated with the storage of water long before the establishment of the dam for the water scheme. The first dam, built before 1893, serviced the Yilgarn Railway. It's catchment was an extensive granite cap on land later owned by Paul Howitt, whose catchment is a low wall of granit slabs skilfully intermarried and standing as sturdily as when they were first laid almost a hundred years ago. From the catchment, water was directed by means of a tunnel, sufficiently large enough for a man to stand upright, through a hill to the old railway dam. Spoil from the tunnel, over half a mile long, may still be seen as a series of mounds between the catchment and the dam. It is said that Chinese labourers were employed in the tedious work of constructing the tunnel, which in part went theough solid granite. Although the tunnel is now closed, the entrance may still be viewed through an iron grille.. Nearby a two roomed cottage later used by Cunderdin golfers for their buggies. Built before 1900, it was the caretaker's cottage. In the early 1900's the Simpson family consisting of W Blythe Simpson, his wife and four children, Rose, JIm , Tom and May lived in the cottage. They had a fine vegetable garden near the dam and Simpson Senior was forever mending the water pipes with red lead.

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