Bendigo Historical Society Inc.
Document - The Pitcher Dressers, W.G. O'Neill, Unknown
Axedale is well known for its Bluestone. Early on the quarries employed a large number of people. In the 1860’s Napthali Ingham selected land in Axedale and opened a bluestone quarry beside the river later known as Ingham Hill. The quarry produced dressed curbing and pitchers for use in Bendigo and Melbourne. This bluestone can be seen throughout Axedale in the churches, the bridge over the Campaspe River and guttering in the township. The quarry also supplied bluestone products further afield, for example road metal.
Napthali Ingham, the owner of one of the first quarries in Axedale, arrived in Victoria from Lancashire, England, some time before 1860, and settled in Brunswick, Victoria. He may have been building his home in Ewen[sic] Street in 1860, at approximately 31 years of age, when he placed two advertisements in The Argus, October 10. One called for tenders for carting "upwards of 100 perches of rubbish to Sandridge." The other calls for tenders to supply "800 bushels of Geelong Roche Lime." His address, given for the purpose of the advertisements, is Ewen Street, Brunswick.
There were a number of quarries and clay pits in Brunswick at this time and by July 9, 1861, Ingham was operating a quarry and contracting services to local councils and boroughs for road works, including Sydney Road. He also operated the True Briton Hotel in Ewen Street.
Ingham continued his quarry works and business dealings in the Brunswick area for a few years and, around 1872, was contracting for the City of Bendigo. He eventually moved to Axedale, between Bendigo and Heathcote, where he took up land and opened a bluestone quarry on the east bank of the Campaspe River. As he had difficulty transporting bluestone to Bendigo, he wrote a letter to The Bendigo Advertiser, suggesting a tramway be laid between Sandhurst (Bendigo) and Axedale. Over the next ten years or so, he modified this suggestion to a rail line connecting Sandhurst, Axedale and Heathcote to the North East line at Seymour. This suggestion did not materialise in its entirety, but it eventually resulted in what became the Wandong, Heathcote and Sandhurst Rail Line, the first sections, Bendigo-Heathcote and Wandong-Kilmore, opening October 1, 1888.
In the 1870s, Ingham built the Quarry Hotel which is now the crumbling ruins adjoining Ingham Road on the east side of the Campaspe River.. Its condition is worsening as time passes.
Ingham intended to have a tramline constructed from his Axedale bluestone quarry to the new rail line. This also did not happen but he was successful in getting a wood siding provided at the location that is today's Hanson's Quarry. Evidence of the rail siding are still evident at the site in 2025.
Ingham's quarry is now owned by Hansen Quarries
Ingham died in 1909 and the rail line that grew out of his suggestion lasted until 1958 when it was closed from Bendigo to Heathcote. The Heathcote Junction section was closed in 1968.
Another quarry was owned and operated by Brasier, Riley and Nelson. 'This well known firm of contractors have a most extensive plant and all the latest improved machinery required for the supply of kerbstone, pitchers, monumental work and dressed bluestone metal for road making. ('Bendigo & District, 1902')
1. One page typed poem, written by W.G. O'Neill, titled 'The Pitcher Dressers, (Quarrymen). The poem tells the story of three Rowan brothers who came to the Axedale Quarry:
'They came to work on Axedale stone,
Big contracts came that way,
As pitcher dressers they could earn,
Their thirty bob a day.'
2. Three copies of newspaper articles relating to quarry work and employees attached to poem: information regarding Brasier, Riley and Nelson, contractors (Bendigo and District 1902); 'The Stone Quarry Grievance' (Bendigo Advertiser, 15 June, 1959, p2); 'A Restriction Upon Industry' (Bendigo Advertiser, 2 June, 1859).
Article 'A Restriction Upon Industry" details the anomalies that exist between working the quartz reefs for gold and quarrying for building stone. The cost of obtaining a license to 'quarry stone is 50 pounds sterling which must be paid down in order to merely prospect the ground. Some people who took out a lease to work a reef were actually 'looking for building stone'.
On bottom of poem, W.G. O'Neill, Bendigo. Pupil of Axedale School, 1908-1917.axedale, quarry, napthali ingham, pitchers, pitcher dressers, bluestone, campaspe river, quarry hotel, rowan brothers
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Bendigo Historical Society Inc.