Northfield - Lookout from which prisoners working the Yatala Stockade quarry in the 1850s could be watched. South Australia

Yatala Stockade complex, Northfield

Yatala Prison was built in 1854 to enable inmates to work the quarries. It was the second prison to be built in the state. The first was Adelaide Gaol built 1841.

 

Lookout, northern side of Dry Creek Valley.

From here prisoners working in and around the quarry could be watched.

 

Cambrian stone quarried in the Dry Creek Valley at Northfield was used for an estimated 95% of Port Adelaide’s stone buildings: transport was by rail.

 

Stone from here was used for many Adelaide government buildings, rubble served for roads, stone for street paving and gutters, and weathered shale for the cement industry. Shale was used for burning with limestone to manufacture cement.

Yatala quartzite was used for Adelaide’s street water tables.

 

A powder magazine built in 1879 was situated a good distance from the quarry but still to the north of the prison. Gunpowder was stored there.

 

 

 

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