GEOLOGY TALK

THE HISTORY BENEATH VICTORIAN ICONS

Who would ever have thought that Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens sits atop one of Melbourne’s original quarries?

The Victorian Government has produced a booklet to recognise the quarrying history behind some of Victoria’s best-known public spaces.

The New Lives of Old Quarries: Innovative Development after Quarrying Ceases reveals what kind of quarrying operations used to occur on sites like Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens, Highpoint Shopping Centre, Cranbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Albert Park Lake.

The premise of the resource was to advocate for innovative rehabilitation plans to inspire the next generation of Victorian infrastructure – from the ashes of where the materials were sourced.

Victorian Resources Minister Jaala Pulford said it was just as important to recognise the part quarries play today as it is to turn them into something else.

“Quarries are vital to build a state that provides for every person, regardless of where they live, and we know it’s just as important to plan for what happens when the extraction ends,” Pulford said.

“Old quarries have been transformed into some of our most loved community assets and we’ll continue to make sure that’s the case.”

“This compendium provides just a few examples of where quarry land has been repurposed for uses that benefit our community,” John Krbaleski, the chair of the Victorian Government’s Extractives Strategy Taskforce, says in the introduction to New Lives for Old Quarries.

“You may be surprised. You may be inspired. A quarry may be temporary, but it supplies critical materials for our daily lives and the possibility for the future of quarried land is endless.”

Examples in the booklet include: • The Fitzroy Gardens, which sits atop one of the first quarries to open in Melbourne in the 1830s. • The All Nations Park in Northcote, which produced clay bricks in the 1870s. The

Northcote Brick Company developed the 3.2 hectares of land, which included a 12-metre deep quarry. • Valley Lake in Niddrie, which produced basalt from the 1940s to the 1970s. The backdrop to the lake is a 30m high basalt cliff face. • Coburg Lake Reserve, which between 1858 and 1864 provided the bluestone bricks that created the infamous

Pentridge Prison. • The Quarry Reserve in Ferntree Gully, whose quarry site was established in 1888 and did not cease operation until 1995. Thanks to the advancement of equipment and technology over its century of operation, the quarry’s output went from 20,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) in the 1920s to more than 700,000 tpa by the early 1990s. • Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne.

This area was quarried from the 1820s for its renowned tertiary or “Cranbourne” sand which was employed in bricklaying and concrete production. From 1920 to 1970, it was quarried under licence but was acquired by the Victorian

Government as part of its plans to create a “native annex” to Melbourne’s Royal

Botanic Gardens. •

The New Lives of Old Quarries, produced by Victorian Earth Resources, chronicles the former quarrying lives of iconic sites throughout Victoria.

To view a copy of The New Lives of Old Quarries booklet, visit the Victorian Earth Resources website: earthresources.vic. gov.au/projects/extractive-resourcesstrategy/innovative-sector