Coptic Church in Kaleen

The Pope of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, died yesterday. He opened this church in Kaleen in 1991. We've been here before - nearly a year ago - but it seemed appropriate to take another photo today.

[Photo has had a dry brush filter applied in Photoshop]

St Bede's, Braidwood

We headed out to Braidwood for the day yesterday, so I have a few new photos of the town to show.

This is St Bede's Catholic Church, built of local granite between 1856 and 1862 (around the time of the local gold rush) by Richard Hannaford. The slate roof was added in the late 19th century, replacing the original timber shingles.

St Paul's Ginninderra, Evatt

Lyall Gillespie Collection

These photos are from the new (2010) sign on the site of the old St Paul's Anglican Church and burial ground site in Evatt. The sign gives a brief history of the church and site. The drawing below is dated 1926, so the photo must have been earlier than that, but clearly the church was already disused, and probably had been for some years, so possibly it was taken in the 1910s or early 20s. Perhaps the building was used as some sort of farm storage once it had started to deteriorate - there seems to be a cart in the drawing below.

Sketch of St Paul's Church, Ginninderra, by Eireen Mort

What lies beneath

On the corner of Copland Drive and Moynihan Street, Evatt, is what seems to be a vacant block of land. There's not much there - a few poplar trees, some more established than others, a few young eucalypts around the fence, and a lot of sparse, tussocky, weedy grass with a few blue and pink patches of tiny flowers. The only thing that you might find intriguing is the 'Historic Cemetery' sign along the Copland Drive edge.

I've been meaning to find out about it for ages, and I finally had the chance this weekend.

On 12 May 1861, St Paul's Church of England was opened on this site. At the time, it was part of Ginninderra Station, owned by the Campbell family. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember a park - Glebe Park - in the city, which was previously land donated to the Church of England to help support the rector of St John's, Reid. Well, there were three such parcels of land donated by the Campbells as glebes, and this what remains of one of them. The glebe consisted of 200 acres - 1 acre for a church, 2 acres for a burial ground, and the remainder to be leased to tenant farmers to provide an income for the church for maintenance and support.

St Paul's was a small rural church - 5m x 9m, with a tiny porch and a bell-cote. It was partly built in slab and weatherboard, and partly in lath and plaster, with a shingle roof and Gothic windows. The type of construction meant it needed constant maintenance.

From April 1862, the building also functioned as a school. The school attendance fluctuated, as was often the case in rural communities when children were required to help on the farm at times, and it could also be difficult to cross Ginninderra Creek in times of heavy rain. By 1870, the numbers had fallen to below 7, and the school closed.

In 1882, the village of Hall was established and became much more important to the local community than Ginninderra. St Paul's was still used until 1900, but in 1904 it was severely damaged  in a storm and left to deteriorate.

The suburb of Evatt was established in the 1970s, and part of the old burial ground was lost under newly constructed roads. Many of the old grave markers were made of timber, and had deteriorated and disappeared, and there was no record of the actual plots. This space was used as a construction parking area during the suburb's development.

A new parish of St Paul's Ginninderra was established in 1981, and the block was designated for a new church building. however, the parishioners decided not to go ahead with this, and initially met in the primary school at Melba, and more recently in the Spence primary school (which is no longer used as a school, and has a number of tenants apart from the church).

Reference: Most of the historical information given here is from the ACT Heritage Register.

Canberra City Uniting Church

The Canberra City Uniting Church, Northbourne Avenue. The current church buildings were opened in 1988, but the site has been used for services since about 1940. Until 1977 it was Congregational Church, becoming the Uniting Church when the Congregationalists, Methodists and some Presbyterians in Australia decided to combine. The new buildings contain, as well as the church itself, church offices, conference facilities, commercial office space and the Early Morning Centre, which provides services to the community, especially homeless people living on the city streets.

There is an information leaflet about the church's history and design features on the church website.

St Ninian's, Lyneham

 

Not all of Canberra is modern public art and Brutalist concrete 1980s buildings. St Ninian's Uniting Church in Lyneham is an example of Canberra's early European settlement. Opened in 1873 as the district's second permanent church building (after St John's Church of England at Reid), it replaced an earlier (1862) slab and bark building used by the Scottish Presbyterian settlers. The stone was quarried locally - from Black Mountain - and the original building was a simple rectangle with two arched windows down each side. The church was extended in 1901, using the same stone and adding another arched window on each side, but attendances declined for several reasons, and the building was closed in 1920.

 

For over 20 years the building served as a hay barn, and then was completely abandoned and left to decay. But in 1941 it caught the attention of the minister of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Canberra, and he was instrumental in its restoration and reopening in 1942, under the new name of St Ninian's.

 

A church hall was added in 1961, and there were further extensions in 1978-79 (using Black Mountain stone), after St Ninian's had become part of the Uniting Church in Australia (formed by Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches) in 1977. For those interested, there's more information on the church website and in the 2011 ACT Heritage Notice.