Pump Room

The pump room at Waterfall Sanatorium sits in a small outbuilding behind one of the ward blocks, a concrete-floored space with the mechanical plant that drove the hospital's water supply. Two large cast-iron pumps sit on concrete plinths in the centre of the room, their casings painted the standard dark green of NSW Government works of the period. Piping runs from the pumps up to a header above the back wall, with valves at the junctions. The walls are rendered concrete, painted cream, with the paint flaking in patches where damp has worked through. A row of small windows high in the back wall admits the cold winter daylight. The floor is sloped concrete leading to a central drain.

The Hospital for Consumptives at Waterfall opened in April 1909 as the principal NSW facility for the treatment of advanced tuberculosis. The site sat at around 305 metres elevation, 42 kilometres south of Sydney. At peak in 1919 it held 788 patients, the largest sanatorium in the state. The pump room handled the water supply for the ward blocks, the staff quarters, the laundry, and the kitchens. The sanatorium closed in 1958 once antibiotic treatment and thoracic surgery made isolation unnecessary; the site converted to Garrawarra Hospital and then to the Garrawarra Centre for the Aged. Brett photographed the pump room in June 2018.