The Cultural History of Cheap Blue Stone in Melbourne

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.