In the village of Quenast, from
Brussels and within
Rebecq,
Walloon Brabant, the quarry covers and reaches a depth of . The porphyry material, formed beneath the
tertiary rocks in Brabant during the
Silurian period, is of volcanic origin and known for its extreme toughness. Belgian porphyry was traditionally made into
cobblestones or
paving stone. This material was used for paving and road construction, with exports to cities across Europe and globally, including heavy use in the streets of
Paris. In 1705, the
States of Brabant constructed the
Brussels-Mons road with stones sourced from the quarry, according to records. The material extracted from the quarry was moved along a railway, linking with the main line at
Tubize. In 1844, entrepreneur Joseph-Emmanuel Zaman began unifying the porphyry quarries under a single ownership, transforming them into one of Belgium's most significant industrial enterprises. Zaman's company, Zaman & Co., operated six of the seven active pits by 1860. On August 12, 1864, the Porphyry Quarries Company of Quenast () acquired the business and purchased a larger part of the tract. An experiment was held in 1872 at the Quenast quarry to test lithofracteur and assess its usefulness for the
mining industry and
military engineering. The porphyry extracted from the quarry at Quenast was frequently used for paving in Berlin, Bordeaux, Cologne, Dunkirk, The Hague, Lille, Paris, and Rotterdam in the 1880s. As of 1887, the quarry in Belgium produced 100,000
paving setts a day. By 1899, the quarries functioned as a
cooperative association, allowing workmen to share in a yearly dividend. Amid
World War I in 1914, the Quenast porphyry quarry was abandoned. In 1919, the
S.S. Quenast arrived in the
River Thames with its first shipment of
macadam from the quarry since the outbreak of war. By 1969, the 400-year-old quarry was supplying stone for the
Delta Works, an extensive Dutch flood defence system. ==References==