Statham's Quarry (also known as Darling Range Quarry, and then Perth City Council's Darling Range Quarry after 1920) is the site of a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

on the

Darling Scarp The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to th ...

on the southern side of the entrance of the

Helena River The Helena River is a tributary of the Swan River in Western Australia. The river rises in country east of Mount Dale and flows north-west to Mundaring Weir, where it is dammed. It then flows west until it reaches the Darling Scarp. It passe ...

valley on to the

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geo ...

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

, Western Australia. It is located in Gooseberry Hill and is within the bounds of the

Gooseberry Hill National Park Gooseberry Hill National Park is a national park in Western Australia, in the locality of Gooseberry Hill, 21 km east of Perth. It is at the southern side of the mouth of the Helena Valley on the Darling Scarp. Statham's Quarry is located ...

History

Established by Thomas Statham (1858–1918) and William Burton in 1894, Statham's Quarry is considered a rare example of a stone quarry which has retained physical evidence of its operations and is associated with the development of the quarry industry in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

. The

Perth City Council Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth ...

operated the quarry following Statham's death and material from the quarry was used as street paving in Perth during the early 1900s. The rocks for the groyne at City Beach also came from the quarry. There was also a clay quarry operation known as Statham's in

Glen Forrest A glen is a valley, typically one that is long and bounded by gently sloped concave sides, unlike a ravine, which is deep and bounded by steep slopes. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrowe ...

which was a brickworks. The quarry is the claimed location of one of the most extensive

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...

dikes on the Darling Scarp. The quarry was serviced by the Kalamunda Zig Zag section of the

Upper Darling Range Railway The Upper Darling Range Railway (also known as the Upper Darling Range Branch) was a branch railway from Midland Junction, Western Australia, that rose up the southern side of the Helena Valley and on to the Darling Scarp via the Kalamunda Z ...

during the time of its operation (which closed in 1949), and was finally put out of operation by a bushfire in 1957. The location has been susceptible to bushfires, the most recent being in the early 2000s.

Current usage

The main current usage of the quarry is rock climbing and

abseiling Abseiling ( ; ), also known as rappelling ( ; ), is the controlled descent of a steep slope, such as a rock face, by moving down a rope. When abseiling the person descending controls their own movement down the rope, in contrast to low ...

, with the

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and en ...

providing facilities and maintaining the site. Dangerous areas are signed and fenced off. The quarry's importance as a safe easily accessible and well maintained climbing and abseiling location close to the metropolitan area of Perth can be found in the climbing records.

Map

* Allen, M. W.(1928) Darling Range Quarry artographic material: City of Perth. Perth, W.A. Scale 1:792 in. = 1 chain(

Battye Library The J S Battye Library (more properly known as the J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History) is an arm of the State Library of Western Australia. It stores much of the state's historical records and original publications including books, ...

catalogue description: Map of Perth City Council's Darling Range Quarry (Statham's Quarry) showing the quarry face with contours, railway and sidings, buildings, fences, telephone lines, pipes, formation of Canning Jarrah Timber Company's old line, Ridge Hill and Stathams (old) sidings, watercourses, heights above sea level, boundary of Perth City Council reserve. Battye accession number 009255.

History

Current usage

Map

Notes

Further reading