VICTORIAN BLUESTONE: PROPOSAL FOR NOMINATION FOR A 'GLOBAL HERITAGE STONE RESOURCE'

This paper suggests Victorian Bluestone as a further nomination as a Global Heritage Stone Resource from Australia. Bluestone is an iconic basalt dimension stone, sourced from the Australian state of Victoria, and used both domestically and internationally with a recognised heritage value. Sources are located in a number of urban and country areas in western and central Victoria with some localised types still utilised for dimension stone. Despite a general distaste for its drab colour, in many instances bluestone has superior technical characteristics, including durability, that surpass the typical high quality commercial sandstone. The superiority in such physical characteristics is equally matched by the diversity of significant uses for domestic, commercial and infrastructure purposes in Victoria alone. These include the Spotswood Pumping Station, Stamford Fountain (Melbourne), Malmsbury and Moorabool Viaducts, the Graving Dock (Williamstown), Malmsbury Reservoir, St Patrick’s Cathedral (Melbourne), Sacred Heart Cathedral (Bendigo), St Andrew’s Kirk (Ballarat), Kyneton Railway Station and Ararat Gaol. While Sydney sandstone may have been described as ‘Australia’s most prominent potential Global Heritage Stone Resource’, if most of the lesser-noted or architecturally indistinct uses of bluestone are considered, such as pavements, gutters, drains, cobbled roads and road crossings and retaining walls, Victorian Bluestone could in turn be described as ‘Australia’s most prominent infrastructure Global Heritage Stone Resource. This wide distribution of use was aided by an extensive colonial rail and sea network established during the nineteenth century. Bluestone use in Melbourne dates from the 1840s, in the other capital cities of Australia and in New Zealand from 1873, with further international interest from Rangoon (modern Burma)(1860) and Java (modern Indonesia)(1880).