Paradise Quarry - A Former Sandstone Quarry Near Sydney CBD

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> Hey everybody and welcome back. I'm currently in Pyrmont in an area which used to be a quarry here in Sydney.

[00:00:23]Now, Saunders Quarries had, from what I understand, three quarries in the area: Paradise Quarry, Purgatory, and Hell Hole.

[00:00:34]And the sandstone was carved or [snorts] carved the cliffs of Ultimo and Pyrmont. So, I'm currently in Carmichael Park or Carmichael Reserve here in Pyrmont.

[00:00:47]You can see the beautiful sandstone cliff face here.

[00:00:57]It's something I wanted to have a look at for a while.

[00:01:01]And now there's actually somewhere where there's a Paradise Quarry monument that I'm that I want to look at.

[00:01:11]So, you can see here where blocks were carved out of this little inlet.

[00:01:19]Which is one of those little fun facts of Sydney. Something pretty cool.

[00:01:24]I actually just finished up at um at Memories Creation Without End.

[00:01:33]There is a plaque just up there which we'll have a look at in a minute, which will give you some more information about it.

[00:01:40]It's a nice park, too.

[00:01:46]Historic engineering marker.

[00:01:54]Uh pause the video, have a read of that, and resume when you're done.

[00:02:09]So, in this video we're just looking at the area which was known as Paradise Quarry, which is the area we're in now.

[00:02:21]So, sandstone was carved out of these quarries here in Pyrmont and Ultimo to uh you know, be part of some of Sydney's beautiful 19th century buildings.

[00:02:34]A lot of which still stand today. But um if you want to look at Memories Creation Without End, I'm just like literally waving the phone around here uh while I'm talking. If you want to look at Memories Creation Without End, I just look up. That's one of the most recent few videos. Uh look that up. There, Memories Creation Without End Abandoned Doors. And uh have a look. You'll be able to see um bits and pieces of old sandstone um from buildings that have been demolished, like 19th century buildings that have been demolished around Sydney, and that sandstone was actually quarried here.

[00:03:09]It'll be quarried here in Sydney, and there's also another quarry which is still in operation uh there at Wonderbean, which is north of Sydney. Um from a train station point of view, that is um between Hawkesbury River and Weowie stations. It has a little tiny station there called Wonderbean.

[00:03:27]And you can get off at and there's actually a an active sandstone quarry there.

[00:03:32]Now, come for a bit of a walk with me as um we exit this area and try and find this uh Paradise Quarry monument, which is a sandstone block with the word Paradise carved into it.

[00:03:44]It is at um Distillery Drive Reserve. I looked that up on Google Maps, and Google Maps is like, "Huh?"

[00:03:53]But Distillery Drive is actually a pretty small small road, and it's up there.

[00:03:59]So, if we take that little path up there, we'll actually still still see some sandstone cliff face, which is pretty cool.

[00:04:08]I don't know why my voice got higher then, but anyway.

[00:04:15]It's a nice little walk, too.

[00:04:21]So, that big burst of energy after work um started off by filming that um church like a site of the 1700s church at Lang Park. Now, when you uh then walked to Memories Creation Without End um near Circular Quay and Botanic Gardens.

[00:04:44]Let's see where that's been carved away there, where blocks have been taken out.

[00:05:03]Just let that family through.

[00:05:14]Pretty interesting cuz um the cliff faces here remind me of John Street Square light rail stop, thinking that it was heaps far away, but it's like right like that way somewhere.

[00:05:26]Okay, so this here is Distillery Drive. You can see the street sign just here.

[00:05:32]So, which means this sandstone block is uh somewhere.

[00:05:36]And this is just where we came from.

[00:05:48]Okay, so I was here thinking that this was going to be an adventure, but I think we already found it.

[00:05:59]It's really interesting that a place like what, a quarry, is so close to Sydney CBD. However, back in the day, it wasn't um it wasn't that uh that built up as it is now.

[00:06:16]There's actually a staircase up the sandstone cliff face there. There's also a lift, but for the video's sake, we'll take the stairs right after we have a look at this sandstone monument, which is right there.

[00:06:34]Yeah, let me get out of ultra wide.

[00:06:39]All right, maybe better.

[00:06:40]All right, there's some information there.

[00:06:43]Just looking for the part where Paradise is carved out of this.

[00:06:53]Okay, so yep. This one says Hell Hole, which is after that quarry.

[00:07:02]Paradise.

[00:07:04]Beauty.

[00:07:07]And before we have a look at the information on the plaque there, there's a block that says Purgatory. So, they are the three quarries.

[00:07:19]That's amazing.

[00:07:20]I love this kind of stuff. I mean, I knew about this for a while, but I didn't know there was any like plaques and information and things like that.

[00:07:27]All right.

[00:07:28]So, you want to pause the video, have a bit of a read of that, and then resume when you're done.

[00:07:44]Sweet.

[00:07:45]And then there's another there's another plaque just around here.

[00:07:56]Oh, beautiful. Okay, sweet. Um let me just walk out and do a times four zoom.

[00:08:04]Three, 3.9, four.

[00:08:07]So, there's a list of buildings in Sydney that um that are made from sandstone quarried from Pyrmont.

[00:08:17]Buildings like Government House, Sydney's Town Hall, Sydney University, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, St. Mary's Cathedral, St. Andrew's St. Andrew's Cathedral, the Great Synagogue, the General Post Office or the GPO. Wow.

[00:08:32]Lands Department, Colonial Secretary's Office, the Treasury, Registrar General's Office, Customs House, Australian Museum, National Art Gallery, Central. Okay.

[00:08:48]Darlinghurst Courthouse and Darlinghurst Fire Station.

[00:08:53]That's awesome.

[00:08:55]Yeah, that's wicked.

[00:08:59]Very happy about this. That's That's awesome.

[00:09:03]All righty, so what we're going to do now is we are going to climb the cliff face using stairs.

[00:09:11]See what's up here.

[00:09:29]This will get my steps up.

[00:09:31]That's supposed to be a pun or something.

[00:09:34]Yes, I'll get my steps up in more ways than one.

[00:10:16]>> Bless you.

[00:10:18]I was going to scream it out, but I thought nah.

[00:10:23]Okay.

[00:10:25]So, it's like a um It's like a cliff top walk.

[00:10:30]That's cool.

[00:10:36]Oh.

[00:10:38]Apart from being on top of a a cliff where sandstone was carved you know, carved out.

[00:10:48]Sourced.

[00:10:50]Quarried.

[00:10:52]Um see what else is up here to see if there's anything here like to do with a to do with the quarry.

[00:11:01]Like any informa- information, any anything.

[00:11:08]It's a cool sitting area. You got the Anzac Bridge in the distance.

[00:11:12]As a matter of fact, you got uh a little green plaque in the distance.

[00:11:16]And uh Okay, so this is Distillery Hill.

[00:11:27]Okay, so this circle thing is a I think it might might have been one of the tanks for distillery. It veered off from um sandstone, but uh two liquids from sugarcane, one clear and sharp filtered through black charcoal.

[00:11:44]The other viscous, luscious, and dark brown once stored.

[00:11:52]Oh, yeah. Once once stored in large tanks at top Distillery Hill. And this is Distillery Hill.

[00:11:58]And this would have been one of the tanks.

[00:12:04]Okay.

[00:12:09]And this little plaque thing I was talking about.

[00:12:15]Okay, yes, it's to do with sandstone.

[00:12:17]Uh tank as well.

[00:12:19]Freshwater spring in sandstone overhang.

[00:12:23]Once hydrated generations of locals until destroyed by quarrying in late '20s.

[00:12:31]All right.

[00:12:35]Interesting.

[00:12:37]All right, we'll continue walking up here, you know.

[00:12:40]It'll just be an adventurous video.

[00:12:43]Unless this is one of the tanks.

[00:12:46]Was one of the tanks.

[00:12:53]Very interesting.

[00:12:56]We'll have a look at signage cuz there's a like a ramp or something just up there.

[00:13:01]See if there's any signage that says anything to do with sandstone.

[00:13:13]So, we can kind of see what direction this video is going to go cuz I have no idea. Never been here before.

[00:13:27]Okay.

[00:13:32]Got a decent ramp here.

[00:13:42]See if we can see some sand- sandstone cliff face down here.

[00:13:48]Damn, that's trippy.

[00:13:53]It's so much bigger in person, though.

[00:14:09]I mean, this is all built on sandstone.

[00:14:13]You have a look down there, driveway going under the apartments.

[00:14:16]So.

[00:14:18]See a sandstone face there.

[00:14:23]So, this keeps going down.

[00:14:33]It just goes down into what looks like a car park for the apartments. So, we'll continue down these stairs.

[00:14:52]Sounds like someone's got their blower out. Probably the council.

[00:14:56]Doing some cleaning up.

[00:15:02]Actually, it might I don't know if it's a blower or like a drill or something.

[00:15:11]Some sandstone there.

[00:15:13]Yeah, I just uh walked past the the gardener guy doing his stuff.

[00:15:20]Scared the out of him.

[00:15:22]Tried to walk up to him and you know, crunch leaves under my feet so he could sort of see me beforehand and that cuz I didn't want to scare the crap out of him while he was on the stairs cuz, you know, if he tumbled down the things, I'd feel uh quite bad.

[00:15:35]That's all right. He's still standing.

[00:15:36]He didn't fall.

[00:15:40]So, yeah, it's got some still got some sandstone here.

[00:15:44]There's so much of it.

[00:15:46]And there's Anzac Bridge, by the way.

[00:15:47]It's nothing sandstone related, but it's a good view nonetheless.

[00:16:03]All right, I think this video might be coming to an end.

[00:16:07]Cuz at this stage, I'm just taking you all for a massive walk.

[00:16:11]I'm actually going to I'll look up, like I'll finish this video, of course, but um I'll I'll look up uh Hell Hole and Purgatory.

[00:16:22]And uh yeah, I'll see what I can or can't find.

[00:16:31]And if there is sort of like a spot where it says like, you know, this was Purgatory or this was Hell Hole or something like that.

[00:16:37]Then I'll do a video on it. So, if you see something then um you know, I found something.

[00:16:45]If not, then yeah.

[00:16:47]All right, yeah. Now, look, it's just it's just randomly going down here and back up some stairs and all this. So.

[00:16:55]Yeah, that's all for this. Thank you for watching, everyone. I hope hopefully it was uh marginally interesting. Interesting. Oh my god, man. English.

[00:17:03]Interesting. There we go.

[00:17:05]>> [laughter] >> Hopefully it was interesting enough.

[00:17:09]Thank you for watching.

[00:17:10]Um and if if there's any other sort of things like this, like you know, little fun facts or cool things like this, let me know.

[00:17:19]And if I haven't already filmed it, then then I'll do that. It'll be pretty cool.

[00:17:24]I love doing stuff like this. I love reading little bits of history and, you know, where there's like remnants of bits and pieces and you know, like in this video, the remnants were massive.

[00:17:33]>> [laughter] >> You know, massive sandstone cliff faces, but you know, they had the plaques, they had the the Paradise, Purgatory, and Hell Hole carved into the sandstone there. I think it was all pretty interesting.

[00:17:46]All right, that's it. That's it.

[00:17:50]I'll catch you all later. Thank you for watching again.

[00:17:53]Ciao.

[00:17:56]>> [music] [music]