Young's water reticulation and swimming pool
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A permanent water supply for Young was advanced as far back as 1899. One suggestion was an open cut water race from the Murrumbidgee River to Young.
The public works committee could not reach the planning stage due to the excessive costs involved in the project, although the pressure for supply was constant from the Young Council.
There was some hope when the Burrinjuck Dam scheme began to mature. The councils of the South Western Towns held a meeting at Cootamundra and decided to send a deputation to the New South Wales Government.
Favourable official recognition was reached on the possibility of a piped supply from the nearest Murrumbidgee take off point The Minister of Public Works, Mr RT Ball agreed to a proposal from Young in 1925 to set aside a sum of money as a beginning of a water supply for the town.
It took another ten years to bring the scheme to fruition, and this included a pumping station to bring the water along the pipe line to Young's reservoir.
Since then the supply scheme has been improved and more reservoirs added.
For the first time in history water flowed from the Murrumbidgee River into the Burrangong Creek, when in August 1935 the pumps were switched on and water burst through the expansion joints in the pipes on the Lynch Street bridge and poured with full force into the creek.
The noise of the water rushing through could be heard some miles away. Near the Court House water burst out of a fire hydrant and formed a hissing geyser.
After 50 years of agitation for a water supply the water had come to town.
Following the full instillation of the water supply some residents experienced some leakage. When the reservoir, above Tester's orchard, was full and testing completed Young had a water supply with very few serious defects.
The only real grievance was the lack of sufficient supply during the summer months.
Young's Swimming Pool had already been installed in 1934 before the reticulation of the water to the town had been completed.
On the banks of Burrangong Creek there was a portion of land known as 'Coney Island'. Young's 'Coney Island' bore no resemblance to the 'Coney Island' in the USA but what it did have was a water well of high level supplied from a creek spring.
Because of the financial depression of the time the Young Council had received an unemployment relief grant. The council attended to the excavation, which, incidentally, removed 'Coney Island' from the municipality for ever. The relief fund was used to do the concreting as the state government had encourage councils to install swimming pools as a permanent asset. The public took a great interest in the construction and by August 1934 the most common query was "will the Baths be ready for summer". Indeed it was, and opened to a great fanfare.
Lambing Flat and the Cabbage Tree Hat
This article was published in the Guardian, Friday, June 26, 1981, and is about the 85-year-old mother of a man from Young who has manufactured a "cabbage tree hat" which was the historic headgear worn by diggers on the Lambing Flat goldfields.
She is Mrs Ethel Sheldon of Nth Richmond whose son lives in Elizabeth Street, Young. She used to make Cabbage Tree Hats for drovers in the Hawksbury region. The hats disappeared from the local scene about in 1916.
The hat is made from the fibres of the cabbage palm. After the boiling and drying process 1800 strand are split from the palm leaves. These are then platted into a 50 yard length. Each corner is sown by hand requiring a total of 7,500 stitches using three reels of cotton.
The cabbage tree hat song chorus goes like this;
Go where you will
Round Lambing Flat,
Every digger wears
His cabbage-tree hat,
Go where you will,
Now think of that,
You're right if
You've got a cabbage-
Tree hat.
The Cabbage Tree Hat song was published in the 'Sydney Songster' in 1865.
- Historian ,Brian James, contributes his column to the Young Witness each Tuesday on behalf the Young Historical Society Inc.