Sir Winston Churchill Park / St. Clair Reservoir, Toronto

This sketch was drawn in Winston Churchill park directly across from the Spadina Bridge in the Casa Loma neighborhood of Toronto looking towards the valve house (above)and pipe tunnel portal (below) of the St. Clair Reservoir that lies hidden beneath the park. The reservoir was completed in 1931 on lands donated by the Eaton Family. The reservoir and park were designed by Thomas Pomphrey who was also responsible for the better known and architecturally iconic R.C Harris water filtration plant in the Beaches. The St Clair reservoir holds 220 million litres of fresh drinking water that is pumped up Russell Hill Road and accounts for fully 10% of the entire city’s water storage capacity. By design, the reservoir is divided into two self-contained tanks, for redundancy and to allow maintenance to occur without taking the entire facility off line.
The reservoirs eight-metre high roof is held aloft by 830 columns, each of which sits on eight-inch concrete slabs. The reservoir recently went through a multi-year, 25 million dollar renovation whereby the water basins were emptied and repairs were made and both interior and exterior upgrades were completed. These repairs were the first ever needed in the reservoir’s 85-year history, a testament to how well-built it is.