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The Dictionary of Sydney
Multimedia
Cooks River Sydney c1860

Cooks River Sydney c1860

By

Samuel Charles Brees

Image courtesy of the

State Library of Victoria

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Bark huts and country estates Damming the Cooks River Roads

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Rivers and Catchments

Natural features

Cooks River

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Tempe

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Cooks River dam

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Brees, Samuel Charles

State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria is contributing items from its multimedia collection

Roads

Starting as a tiny settlement on the edge of a great continent, Sydney developed roads as Europeans moved out into the hinterland. They became gateways to the port and city that Sydney Town grew into.

Bark huts and country estates

In their drive to establish country estates and thriving industries in the Cooks River valley during the nineteenth century, European settlers exploited the water, timber and fertile soils of the Cooks River with little appreciation of the impact of their 'improvements'

Damming the Cooks River

Once considered 'the greatest boon ever conferred upon the town', the Cooks River dam became an endless source of environmental blight and misery to Sydneysiders and by the turn of the century was demolished

Rivers and Catchments

Cooks River

full record »

River that flows through south-west Sydney, starting at Graf Park, Yagoona, through to Botany Bay at Kyeemagh. The river was extensively polluted by industry and its course was changed to accommodate the runways of Sydney Airport.

Tempe

Inner-west suburb on the northern bank of Cooks River which grew from the workers camp established to build the Cooks River dam in 1839. By the 1850s it was also home to limeburners, woodsmen and fishermen.

full record »

Cooks River dam

full record »

Dam constructed by convict labour at Tempe using quarried stone from the nearby cliffs. It allowed a road link to the city but quickly caused problems of pollution and flooding.