Cunderdin Museum

About

Pump Station No. 3 on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail was built in 1902 to house the original steam engines and boilers used to pump water from Mundaring Weir to the goldfields of Kalgoorlie engineered by C Y O'Connor. Now a fabulous museum open daily

Story

About Cunderdin Museum:
In 1974 the No 3 Pump Station was classified by the National Trust (WA) and in 1999 it was permanently entered on the Heritage Council of Western Australia’s State Register of Heritage Places. The following statement of significance was prepared by the Heritage Council of Western Australia:
“No 3 Pumping Station, a brick and corrugated iron building in a Federation industrial style, constructed to house a pumping station, has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons:
the place is of international importance as a key component of one of the greatest engineering and infrastructure schemes of the late nineteenth century, the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, which was completed in 1903;
the place has rarity value as Australia’s greatest engineering scheme, and is the most tangible infrastructure result of the discovery of gold in Western Australia;
part of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, the place was a key element in the pattern of social, demographic and economic development and resource exploitation in the State. The whole enterprise is an indication of the importance of gold to the regional and national economy at the end of the nineteenth century;
the place has important associations with Australian technological innovation, as well as social and political imagination and ambition. The place is associated with a number of notable figures including the scheme’s designer C. Y. O’Connor and Premier Sir John Forrest, as well as Director H. W. Venn and the architects and engineers of the Public Works Department;
the place has aesthetic value as a well designed purpose built industrial structure expressive of the public importance and ambition of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme; and,
the place has the potential to communicate its history and historical context and thus improve public understanding of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.