Item MM 124313 Photograph - Stone Pillar from Mount Difficult Quarry, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, circa 1980

Summary

Black & white photograph of the four-meter tall stone pillar quarried from Mount Difficult quarry near the Grampians, placed at the south-east corner of the Exhibition Buildings by Stawell local MP, Hon. John Woods, taken circa 1980. Woods was a staunch advocate for the use of stone from the quarry and had the pillar installed in 1880, claiming the quality of the stone was such that it would outlast the building.

This is one of 959 photographs (or images) of the Exhibition Building collated by the Exhibition Trustees as a 10 volume pictorial history of the Exhibition Building spanning the years 1880 to 1985. The pictorial history was instigated by the centenary of the Exhibition Building in 1980 and forms part of a larger Royal Exhibition Building collection of documents, photographs, objects and research files.

Physical Description

A black & white silver gelatin print on a page of a photograph album. The image depicts the stone pillar erected by the Hon. John Woods MP in 1880 to protest the use of imported NSW stone, rather than local material, in the construction of the Victorian Parliament buildings. The view is looking west along the southern side of the Exhibition Buildings with the pillar in the foreground. There is a printed caption below the photograph.