Natural and Cheap Blue Stone in Melbourne is hard, and difficult to carve, but is immensely
strong for building and foundations. It was used by Indigenous people to make
stone eel races by English settlers to make dry stone walls that were
reminiscent of home but that are now distinctive of the south-west of Victoria.
Natural Bluestone was also used for churches, schools and civic buildings such
as the National Gallery of Victoria. Pentridge Prison in Coburg was built near
the bluestone quarried from the Merri Creek so the prisoners could dig out the
materials for building the walls for gothic style prison.
Convicted exploited for minimizing costs.
Cheap Blue Stone in
Melbourne is also a contested feature of urban architecture: many local
types of council wanted to concrete over the kilometres of bluestone laneways
that are expensive to maintain but are a characteristic feature of Melbourne
and its inner suburbs. Convicted labour often quarried bluestone, and it has
been suggested that Ned Kelly, the Victorian bushranger, might have laboured in
the bluestone quarries in Williamstown. Bluestone used in sites like
cemeteries, morgues, gallows are often said to be haunted that is a major
feature of conventional heritage tourism.
Cheap Blue Stone in
Melbourne was traded internationally.
Bluestone was also sent back to England as ballast in ships
that had brought convicts, settlers and supplies to Australia. The stone was
used in buildings around the port areas of London, so bluestone also has a
global history. More recently, bluestone was used to create a Cretan labyrinth
near the Merri Creek in 2002: a new age meditative practice using the local
stone to express an ancient tradition. This labyrinth is cared for by members
of the local community.
In
2015 Stephanie Trigg had dedicated her Blog on Humanities Researcher to keep a
daily record of her research and encounters with bluestone, from bridges,
churches, monuments, schools and prisons, to debates about heritage culture,
and the emotional language used to describe this stone and its distinctive use
in Victoria and Melbourne. Research assistant Helen Hickey, she is building a
digital archive of the way Victorians and Melbournians have worked with
bluestone, in preparation for an illustrated book to be written over the course
of this year.
