Waterworks Cottage No. 117

This house is one of several constructed in the early twentieth century for workers at the Mount Crosby Waterworks. The waterworks, which had opened in the 1890s, expanded dramatically in the early twentieth century, and several cottages were built to cater for its employees. This house was built around 1915 for the night engineer, Robert Stevenson, who moved into the house in 1916. It had been erected in a new village area near the school and general store, slightly removed from the waterworks and an earlier group of workers’ houses. Owned by various waterworks authorities for most of the twentieth century, the house and its neighbours were sold into private ownership in the 1990s due to the increased urbanisation of Mount Crosby and a declining need to house waterworks employees. The house, a highset timber dwelling featuring a projecting front gable and front veranda, demonstrates the development of the Mount Crosby Waterworks and the development of housing design in the area.