O'Malley, Pauline, Susan Piddock, Pam Smith and Donald Pate (Department of Archaeology, Flinders University)

Delabole: A Cornish Settlement and Slate Mine in Colonial South Australia

Slate was first discovered near Willunga in 1840 by Mr E. Loud, who quarried an outcrop on his property. A year or so later Mr Daw opened a quarry east of Loud's quarry, which he named Delabole after the famous quarry in Cornwall. By 1850 there were five slate quarries manufacturing slate products in the Willunga area. By 1868 twenty men were employed at the Delabole quarry and many lived in a small village adjacent to the quarry. The quarry produced slate tiles for rooves and floors, and a variety of products including water tanks and wine vats. Slate from the Delabole quarry was used to roof the Adelaide GPO and Town Hall, the Legislative Council, the Bank of Adelaide, the University of Adelaide, the South Australian Museum and the Grote Street School. Slate production reached its peak in the 1880s with two ships sailing each week from Port Willunga to Port Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney; but by the end of the nineteenth century the Delabole quarry had gone into a decline and was no longer profitable. The houses were made of pise, a mixture of the red mud and stone chips, and were built on the side of the hills adjacent to the quarry. Ruins of five of the cottages remain, together with a small church built from slate. Today the slate quarry is listed on the heritage register but the ruins of the village, which are on private land, are not registered. Aim: To document the Delabole ruins and quarry and to assess its heritage significance in order to argue that both the quarry and village form a unique cultural landscape and should both be listed on the South Australian State Heritage Register. Method: A cultural landscape approach was used to analyse both the quarry and the village as an inter-related whole where the quarrymen and their families lived and worked. The history of Delabole was researched and the area was surveyed, documented and entered on a GIS database. Result: Delabole quarry and village is an example of an imported 19th century colonial landscape. The hierarchical plan of an English village is reflected in the plan of the village. The slate church is sited high on the hill, overlooking the village and the quarry. The foreman's house is below the church, overlooking the quarrymen's cottages and facing the quarry. The relationship between the features form a unique cultural landscape and the pise cottage construction is believed to be rare and of significance.

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