Top apprentice Bianca Taylor carves a path from Mitcham Girls School drop out to SA’s first female stonemason

Bianca Taylor left school at 15 years of age after nursing her mother through breast cancer, a blow that turned her to stone.

Bianca Taylor left school at 15 years of age after nursing her mother through breast cancer, this week the tight-knit family is celebrating her top gong as the state’s first female stonemason.

A first dabble in stonemasonry helping restore the 1926 Adelaide Railway Station building on work experience saw Bianca fall in love with the trade.

SA's first female stonemason crowned apprentice of the year Bianca Taylor outside “her baby” Adelaide railway station where she worked on restoration of the 1856 facade. Picture: Kelly Barnes

She already was missing lessons at Mitcham Girls School to support her mother Trina through a cancer diagnosis and when this new passion emerged she was supported in leaving the classroom for a hands-on job.

“I had come back from work experience at the railway station and said to my Mum, ‘this is it, I have to do this for the rest of my life, I love working with my hands and restoring South Australia’s heritage’,” Bianca, of Blackwood, says.

“The first day of my apprenticeship was the day my Mum went into hospital for a double mastectomy and I didn’t want to go but she said ‘no, go, you have to go’, my Mum is a legend.”

Bianca Taylor working to restore the close to 1000-years-old Exeter Cathedral in the United Kingdom. Picture: Supplied

Now recovered, Trina has seen her daughter this week named the state’s Apprentice of the Year and first qualified female stonemason at an Adelaide Convention Centre ceremony.

It followed that first Renewal SA work experience, an apprenticeship at Heritage Stone Restoration and an exchange to the United Kingdom to learn from experts restoring the almost 1000-year-old Exeter Cathedral.

Bianca says the work spurred her onto graduating in November last year and opening her own business Taylor Made Heritage Restoration in January.

Along the way she helped restore the main facade at Scotch College in Torrens Park, the Brougham apartments in North Adelaide and the Bice Building on the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site on North Terrace.

But Bianca still has a soft spot for where it all began.

“I’ve worked on homes in Ottoway, and I love a good bluestone … but the Adelaide Railway Station is my favourite, that’s my baby, I spent two years there, that’s where I started and it’s where I found my love for stonemasonry.”