Cocoroc
Cocoroc Town Hall, 1912
Aboriginal people have lived in Australia, including what is now Victoria, for more than 40,000 years. The rivers, creeks and land we manage today are places of spiritual and community activity of the past, present and future. Aboriginal sites, places and objects can be found all over Victoria, often near natural resources.
The Western Treatment Plant is a significant cultural landscape which has a rich history of Indigenous, Contact and European heritage. In particular, the area that is now the treatment plant is the traditional Country of the Wathaurung people. The workers township of Cocoroc was created onsite in 1894 to house workers employed at the Metropolitan Sewage Farm (as it was known then). The name 'Cocoroc' means 'frog' in the traditional language of the Wathaurung people.
An 1894 plan of the township shows there were 72 allotments. By 1897, there were 32 houses, a town hall, football ground (and team), swimming pool, tennis courts, four schools and a post office. By the early 1950s there were nearly 100 houses, and by the 1970s some 500 people were living in Cocoroc.
As it became too expensive for the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) to subsidise, Cocoroc was abandoned. By 1973 most of the houses and other buildings were demolished or moved to Werribee.
All that is left now of Cocoroc are two small, empty, concrete swimming pools, a few weatherboard sheds and a big iron water tank.
The heritage listed water tank
Cocoroc comes back to life
The heritage listed water tank has been granted a new lease on life through an extensive restoration project.
The tank was originally located in East Melbourne and stored water from the Yarra River in Melbourne’s early days. It was moved to Cocoroc in 1893 as a back-up water supply for the workers. It was de-commissioned in 1925 after the township was connected to mains water, and finally drained in 1929.
For many years, soil used by the treatment plant’s tree nursery was stored beneath the tank.
The tank has been converted into an interpretive centre, which together with remnant buildings and structures from the former township will be used to house displays interpreting the rich cultural history of the site.