Go back in time when quarries were a part of Brisbane’s development

Mon 15 Jul 2024

The subject of Charles H Lancaster’s work The Quarry c.1930 (illustrated) can be linked to the development of Brisbane — a time of nation-building projects across Australia to offset the effects of the Great Depression, typified in Brisbane by the construction of the Brisbane City Hall (1920–8 April 1930) (illustrated) and the Story Bridge (1935–6 July 1940) (illustrated), these ambitious public constructions ignited the enthusiasm of contemporary artists and inspired numerous images of industry and the dynamic city.

Let us take you on a journey through some of Brisbane’s landmarks and how ‘Brisbane Tuff’ was integral to the capital’s development from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Brisbane City Hall 1930

Geoffrey Powell Construction of Story Bridge 1939

Construction of the Story Bridge c.1939

Story Bridge a year before completion 1939

One quarry at Kangaroo Point, located on the Brisbane River opposite the City Botanic Gardens, has always been an important part of Brisbane, the ‘Brisbane Tuff’ cliffs (illustrated) being a major source of distinctive — pink, green, blue-grey, and purple — building stone quarried for Brisbane’s early public buildings, most notably the The Windmill (The Observatory) at Wickham Terrace (1824–28) (illustrated), the oldest convict-built structure surviving in Brisbane built to grind grain for the settlement; the Commissariat Store at William Street (1828–29) (illustrated), another surviving convict-built building; Brisbane General Post Office, Queen Street (1871–72) (illustrated) an Italianate influenced design; St Mary’s Anglican Church, Kangaroo Point (1872–73) (illustrated); and Cathedral of St Stephen constructed in several stages (1860, 1870–74, 1884, and 1920–22) (illustrated).

Kangaroo Point Cliffs Quarry

Kangaroo Point Cliffs showing St Mary’s Anglican Church c.1913

Kangaroo Point Cliffs c.1920

The Windmill (Observatory) c.1892

Commissariat Stores 1928

General Post Office c.1875

St. Mary’s Church of England 1958

St. Stephen’s Cathedral c.1879

After 150 years of quarrying, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs now comprise a distinctive vertical rock face 25 metres high — the exposed rock of ‘Brisbane Tuff’ — now a distinctive feature of the Brisbane city landscape. The cliffs were originally steep rocky slopes with boulder outcrops and vegetation, first identified during the exploration of the Brisbane River as early as 1823. From 1825 when the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement moved upstream to Brisbane’s earliest suburb at Kangaroo Point, the ground covered in grassland and bush was cleared and planted with crops to supply food for the new settlement, while a quarry was established at the base of the cliffs to supply stone for the development of the fledgling convict colony.

By the mid-1880s the quarry face extended a little over 100 metres (one-eighth the length of the present quarry face), however with the construction of coal wharves (illustrated) along the southern end of the cliffs at South Brisbane, it necessitated cutting back the remaining cliffs. This created the dramatic length of perpendicular drop that distinguishes the Kangaroo Point Cliffs today. By 1976 the rock had been exploited and the quarry closed.

South Brisbane Coal wharves

‘Brisbane Tuff’ is the most striking of the building stones quarried in Brisbane, even though its rough-dressed stone was used in the construction of Brisbane’s earliest buildings, it was not suited to polishing. Originally used for ballast for sailing ships, it was dedicated to constructing wharfs, marine walls along the river, and the crushed rock for road-making, kerbing, and pavement gravel. In the 1930s a manufactured stone called ‘Benedict stone’ — a mixture of cement and crushed ‘Brisbane Tuff’ — was also used for building as an alternative to full stone construction.

The quarry at Kangaroo Point was not the only source of ‘Brisbane Tuff’, the rock seam runs through Brisbane from the northern suburbs of Stafford, Windsor, Herston, Spring Hill, Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills, Petrie Bight, across the river to Kangaroo Point then through Dutton Park to Six-mile Rocks — with a total of nine local quarries in all.

Petrie Bight Quarry c.1890

Charles H Lancaster ‘The Quarry’ c.1930

It is the area opposite Kangaroo Point — at Petrie Bight under Bowen Terrace — that Charles H Lancaster’s quarry structuresspecifically relate to — a section of exposed quarried cliff to the right of the Story Bridge travelling north (illustrated). The Howard Smith Wharves below the cliffs were expanded to provide relief work during the depression years in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge — beginning 24 May 1935 and opening to traffic on 6 July 1940. We can reference contemporary photographs of the buildings portrayed in The Quarry from at least 1912, however by 1936 only the stone crusher remains and it too disappears by 1938.

1910 (No quarry)

1912 (quarry bottom left)

1926-27

1931

1934

1937

1938

The Kangaroo Point Cliffs, now heritage-listed, is home to Brisbane’s outdoor rock climbing community and is dramatically lit at night, together with the Howard Smith Wharves which also celebrates its waterfront history, have both been revitalised into entertainment precincts — far removed from their origins in the development of Brisbane — breathing new life into those locations for both locals and visitors.

Kangaroo Point Cliffs today

Howard Smith Wharves today

Curatorial extracts, research and supplementary material compiled by Elliott Murray, Senior Digital Marketing Officer, QAGOMA