Spotswood Pumping Station
Melbourne was not sewered until the mid 1890s when a massive project was undertaken to collect and treat all Melbourne's sewage for decades to come. The Melbourne Sewerage System was one of the largest sewerage schemes in the world and unusual in that the entire throughput was treated from the beginning.
Spotswood Pumping Station was built to collect the sewage from several large gravity trunk sewers and pump it up to a level where it could gravitate all the way to the treatment plant at Werribee Farm south west of Melbourne via a large Main Outfall Sewer.
Very large steam pumping engines were installed for this purpose and most were built locally - first by Thompsons of Castlemaine and later by Austral Otis in Melbourne. Electric pumping commenced in the 1920s.
Five steam pumping engines have survived - four made by Austral Otis in the north pump room and one built by Hathorn Davey in Leeds, England in the south pump room.
Engineering Heritage Recognition Program
| Marker Type | Historic Engineering Marker (HEM) |
| Award Date | April 1994 |
| Heritage Significance | |
| Nomination Document | Not Available. |
| Ceremony Booklet Ceremony Report |
Not Available. |
| Plaque/Interpretation Panel | Not Installed. |
