Ridgeway water supply dam

A storage reservoir at Ridgeway, some five kilometres from the GPO, Hobart, at an elevation of about 270m above sea level, was p1annned in 1906 as a result of seasonal shortages in the water supply to the city.

The search for a new site to impound the surplus run-off from Mount Wellington in winter was narrowed down to a shallow valley on a small tributary of the Sandy Bay Rivulet, about a kilometre south of the existing storage reservoirs at the Waterworks.

The choice of site was constrained by the guidelines laid down by the Council – that use was to be made of existing supply mains from the Mountain intakes and the site was to be reasonably close to the existing reservoirs and their trunk main connections to the City reticulation system. The site chosen would be supplied entirely from the highland intakes and would provide a much needed high level storage.