Bluestone - in Australia

In Australia

There are two distinct building materials known as bluestone in Australia. Victorian bluestone is a basalt or olivine basalt, and is quarried by a number of companies throughout the state.

In Victoria, Australia, bluestone was one of the favoured building materials of the 1850s during the Victorian Gold Rush. In Melbourne it was extracted from quarries throughout the Inner Northern suburbs (such as Clifton Hill, Brunswick and Coburg, where the Coburg Lake was the source for Pentridge below) and used extensively in the 19th century. Because the material was difficult to carve, it was predominantly used for warehouses and the foundations of public buildings. Significant bluestone buildings include the Melbourne Gaol, HM Prison Pentridge, St Patrick's Cathedral, Victoria Barracks, Melbourne Grammar School, Deaf Children Australia and Victorian College for the Deaf, Vision Australia, the Goldsbrough Mort warehouses (Bourke Street) and Timeball Tower. It was also used extensively for cobblestone roads, many which still exist in some of Melbourne City's smaller lanes and more extensively in the 19th Century inner suburbs as well as buildings, walls, bridges, curbs and gutters in many of those inner suburbs. Some examples of structures that use the material include Princes Bridge and Federation Wharf and Hawthorn Bridge. Because of its distinctive qualities, post-modern Melbourne buildings have also made use of nostalgic bluestone, including the Southgate complex and promenade in Southbank, Victoria and apartments such as the Melburnian.

It was also sourced in many other regions of the Victorian volcanic plains and used in towns and cities of central and western regions including Ballarat, Geelong, Kyneton, Port Fairy and Portland.