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  3. View of the bridge over the Tank Stream c1803

View of the bridge over the Tank Stream c1803

By
John William Lancashire
From the collections of the
State Library of New South Wales
[a928474 / DG SV1/60] (detail)]
(Detail from 'Sydney Port Jackson, New South Wales, taken from the Rocks on the western side of the Cove, c1803') (Dixson Gallery)

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Sydney Cove Tank Stream
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Lancashire, John William

State Library of New South Wales

Bridges

Water supply

Rivers and Catchments

Tank Stream

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The fresh water course which supplied the fledgling colony, emptying into Sydney Cove. It was named for three storage tanks which were constructed in the sandstone beside the stream during a drought in 1790. By 1828 the stream had been polluted to such an extent that it could no longer be used as a source of water and was diverted into a sewer, and by the 1870s it had been completely covered. The Tank Stream still flows in a covered storm water drain.

Tank Stream bridge

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Bridge across the Tank Stream that divided early Sydney. The first timber log bridge was built by convicts in October 1788 and improved in April 1792 after it had been damaged. In the middle of 1803 construction of a stone bridge to replace the timber bridge began, and was completed in 1804 by stonemason Isaac Peyton. The workmanship was poor and the bridge collapsed later in the year, requiring rebuilding. By 1811 the bridge had been widened, with numerous modifications to follow. By 1860 the stream, now little more than a foetid sewer, had been covered over.

Sydney Cove

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Small bay on the southern shore of Port Jackson, which became the site for the European settlement in Sydney.

The Rocks

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Suburb located north of the central business district on the western shore of Sydney Cove. Characterised by a precinct of restored nineteenth-century buildings which are a major tourist attraction, it was recognised as a separate suburb in 1993.