Bluestone is also known as Basalt, is a complex but permeable rock used prominently as a building material in Melbourne CBD and surrounding suburbs since 1850. It was used in buildings, foundations, gutter edging, and paving. You may think of it as cobblestone.
It was first quarried in the 1830s and 1840s, throughout several locations in Melbourne, guaranteeing an abundant supply of bluestone for Melbourne’s early buildings, curbing, and laneways in an attempt to replicate England’s cobblestone streets.