saw this deep excavation for a new development on Victoria Street, Footscray, and you can see the bluestone (basalt) deposits that are typical of Melbourne’s North and West — the eastern edge of a vast volcanic plain. Bluestone quarrying was once a major industry here

here’s a map of the volcanic plains; Melbourne curves around the bay. the West and to a lesser extent North of Melbourne have a totally different topography to the East and Southeast, and consequently a noticeably different (windier, drier) climate (map: http://vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/ecorich_project_location-map)

some would call this an improvement https://mobile.twitter.com/manenbu/status/1335536701616209920

Pentridge Prison (L) was built with bluestone quarried and shaped by the prisoners themselves, basically on-site. The quarry pit is now Coburg Lake (R). The prison is now an apartment complex and shopping centre

Bluestone is very heavy. It was often used as ballast for import ships returning to Britain, and then for construction; it’s pretty likely a 19C dark stone building in a British port city was quarried in Melbourne.

Pretty much all of the early post-settlement stone construction in Melbourne was bluestone from Brunswick or Footscray (or nearby). Bluestone is hard to shape, and also it was ubiquitous. The local elites yearned for light, bright, easily carved sandstone like they had in Sydney

This is why the oldest, richest universities in Australia are called “sandstone universities”; in the late 19th century, when they were built, sandstone was all the rage, but often had to be trucked in from far away. This is Melbourne Uni and this is... not local stone lmao

Probably also a desire to visually distinguish themselves from big, imposing bluestone fortresses like Pentridge and the Old Melbourne Gaol

literally just twigged, after thinking about the contrasting symbolism of bluestone and sandstone for YEARS, that Bluestone College (Pentridge nickname) is a play on Sandstone University. fmd https://mobile.twitter.com/ConnorCJolley/status/1335544921160208386

some very interesting links in this thread from actual geologist Michael! https://mobile.twitter.com/manenbu/status/1335541137549881350

to summarise:

further reading on the history of bluestone in Footscray:
https://www.livingmuseum.org.au/projects/stories_places/warves/FW_industries_bluestone.html