Conveyor Eight

Conveyor Eight still runs on its diagonal above the concrete floor of one of the processing shed buildings at Hornsby Quarry in Old Mans Valley, Hornsby, where it once carried crushed dolerite toward the next stage of processing. Rust-streaked metal beams and pipe runs converge above it, and a hanging metal basket swings free over the belt. Pink, purple and black tags cover the wooden wall panels. Dry grass and loose debris have settled across the floor. The shed is open enough to let in light, but there is nothing operational left in it. The quarry beneath the Hornsby suburb had been working the dolerite of the Hornsby diatreme since around 1905, when the Higgins family, who had farmed Old Mans Valley since the 1830s, began extracting the volcanic rock for use as gravel aggregate. Hornsby Shire Council bought the operation in 1912, recognising the value of local blue metal for building and maintaining the roads of the northern suburbs. Ownership passed through Hornsby Blue Metal Limited, then Farley and Lewers from 1959, then CSR Construction Materials after CSR Limited acquired Farley and Lewers in 1980. The quarry ran under CSR until 2002. At peak, the site extracted approximately 110,000 tonnes of crushed dolerite per year. The processing shed and crusher plant buildings handled the material after blasting. The conveyor systems moved it through each stage. By 2003, Hornsby Shire Council had acquired the site following a price determination by the NSW Land and Environment Court, and the machinery had stopped for good. When this photograph was made in 2015, the shed still stood. What remained was the steel skeleton of a building that had moved hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock, now holding nothing but its own stopped equipment, the graffiti of people who had come through after, and the dry grass that follows wherever concrete sits long enough undisturbed.