Before you could turn on a tap in Timaru, you had to make a trip to your local well. This photo taken by Burton Brothers, Dunedin 1868 on George Street looking up to the original wooden BNZ building. Clarkson and Turnbull is across the road (left of centre) and the Club Hotel and Flockton Well in the foreground at the left-hand side of the image. There is a man standing on the well and two boys in front of it. The Russell Ritchie and Co. building is on the right corner.
Overdrawn photograph looking down George St and across Great North Road (Stafford St) to the sea, circa 1864. The buildings of Clarkson & Turnbull plus the Post Office appearon the right. Two men are pictured standing outside the Post Office while a horse and wagon can be seen outside Russell Ritchie and Co. on the left. In the background two ships are visible in the roadstead. South Canterbury Museum CN: 2094
Until reticulation in the 1870s artesian wells were the only source of water in Timaru.
Water was, and still is, the lifeblood to any community. Timaru needed a sufficient water supply for the health and comfort of its population. The Pareora Dam and a series of races and tunnels to a bluestone-lined reservoir above Centennial Park were completed in 1881 and served Timaru until 1939. The reservoir was in use until 1960, when a new one was built at Claremont. The water travelled from the dam about twenty six miles.
Today, 2007, Timaru draws its water from two sources, the Pareora River at the Upper Gorge and the Opihi River near Pleasant Point. The water is piped to the Claremont Reservoir where it is treated with ozone and chlorine. Ozone kills bacteria and protozoa and chlorine is used to prevent recontamination.
Find fact: The Pareora River drains the northern Hunters Hills. The lower gorge of the Pareora River has been a source of Timaru's water since 1874. The name may originally have been Pureora, a rite performed for the recovery of the sick, and was named by the early explorer Rakaihautu
Timaru's water supply, head works Pareora, New Zealand, by Muir & Moodie studio. Te Papa (C.014377)