Tarro Pumping Station

In 1928 the Hunter District Water Supply and Sewerage Board approved the installation of a Boosting Station at Tarro where the thirty six inch pipe to Stoney Pinch leaves the main Chichester Trunk Gravity Main.
The tender of Mr J Jamieson, of Waratah, for the Tarro Pumping Station building, for the sum of 6,500 pounds was accepted by the Board on February 19 1929. The Board allowed 28,000 pounds for the total capital expenditure in its 1928 Annual Report.
The Tarro Pumping Station was designed by the staff of the Hunter District Water Board, the plant was installed and ready for operation on the 11th October, 1929, with the building completed on the 7th March, 1930.
The Tarro Pumping Station is an outstanding example of the Federation Free style and was erected in deep red brick highlighted by cream painted and rendered decorative bands and panels.
The portico, which features the original door, is surmounted by a pediment topped with a flagpole. The pediment displays cast bronze letters forming the words Hunter District Water Supply and Sewerage Board Pumping Station, 1929. The portico is decorated with two brick pilasters to either side of the entrance. The pilasters feature recessed panels and the capitals are decorated with four rosettes. On either side of the entrance are two brick plinths surmounted by two wide mouthed urns.
The steeply pitched roof is clad in tiles laid in the French Pattern. The roof, surmounted by two ridge ventilators which are capped by two copper sheathed finials, features four prominent, decorated Federation gables.
The tall timber framed windows are divided equally into three sections, the bottom section of which opens outwards.
The brick fence with wrought iron decoration and wrought iron gates are identical to the original plans. The fence terminates at the entrance in two brick plinths surmounted by two twelve inch circular lights standing on their original wrought iron supports five feet ten inches high and decorated to the bases and the capitals with the Greek Key design.
Internally the main portion of the building consists of the Pump Room 110 feet long by 30 feet wide. Immediately behind the Pump Room is the Switch Room with a floor nine inches above that of the Pump Room.
The motors and pumps were supplied by Messrs. Thampsons of Castlemaine, Victoria. The plant consists of seven electrically driven centrifugal pumping units, housed in a well-ventilated brick building, designed to accommodate, in addition to the existing units, sufficient capacity to boost the proposed forty eight inch gravitation main.
Numbers 1, 2 and 3 units were designed for pumping water from the Chichester main at Tarro via Stoney Pinch to Buttai, Newcastle, and other service Reservoirs, and Numbers 4, 5, 6 and 7 units for acting as boosting pumps to increase the delivery of water from the Chichester Storage Reservoir to the Waratah Reservoir.
Originally the total output capacity of three of the mains` pumps operating together was approximately 96 million gallons per week; one pump being held in reserve.
The curtilage is the boundary of the property and includes fences, gates and lamps and also the Valve House, erected at the same time.