Holy Trinity Anglican Church (Woolloongabba)

Holy Trinity Anglican Church is a heritage-listed church at 68 Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Since the formation of the Church of England Parish of Woolloongabba in 1869, three church buildings have stood on this site. The current church was completed by J. H. Davis in 1930. It was designed by the architect, Eric Ford in the Spanish mission style. The church was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 May 2008.

Background

Holy Trinity Church of England, Woolloongabba, 1949

Woolloongabba is a densely occupied suburb of Brisbane, located Vorlage:Convert south of the Brisbane CBD. Prior to the arrival of European people, Indigenous Australians lived in the area. These were people of the Turrbal nation.

In 1825, the Moreton Bay colony, a penal colony, was established on the north bank of the Brisbane river. Free settlement in the colony by European people was allowed from 1842. From that time until the 1860s, the area south of the river that would become Woolloongabba remained an undeveloped stretch of wetland known as One Mile Swamp. It was a government reserve with fresh water for the colony.

In 1851, however, land in the One Mile Swamp area was made available for private purchase. Then, in 1864, a set of residential and business allotments, called the Clarence Town Estate, was sold by auction. Advertisements for the allotments cited the benefits of an uninterrupted supply of fresh water from One Mile Swamp; the development of transportation and mail routes through One Mile Swamp to places like Cleveland and Ipswich; and the promise of a bridge across the Brisbane river.

In 1869, an allotment at Clarence Town Estate atop a hill at Woolloongabba was donated to the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane by the Reverend Robert Creyke. Creyke held multiple roles in the colony: he was a minister of the Church of England; district registrar for Moreton Bay from 6 January 1860; and Queensland acting deputy registrar general. The deed of the allotment had been acquired in 1861 by his late son, also Robert Creyke, and Mary Ann Peterson. The new Church of England congregation was formed. Its meetings and services were held in local buildings such as the Buffalo Hotel on the Ipswich road.

1870 - 1874

In 1870, a simple wooden church was built after a design by the Irish born, Australian architect, Richard Gailey (1834 - 1924). At this time, the church was called, Woolloongabba Church of England, South Brisbane. In 1873, the church was represented by Mr Robinson and children of the Sunday school at a meeting of the Church of England Sunday School Union in the City Botanic Gardens. This first church building blew down in a storm in October 1874.

1875 - 1889

A second church building was dedicated for service on 23 May 1875 by the Archdeacon Glennie. It was known as Holy Trinity Church, Woolloongabba. It was built on a rectangular plan with a steeply pitched shingled roof and gables. Like the first church building, it was a rudimentary, timber structure. In their report of 1880, the Holy Trinity Churchwardens compared it to a woolshed. Improvements were difficult due to a lack of funds. The churchwardens went as far as raffling a chestnut horse in order to raise the monies needed. Eventually, the church ceiling was lined and a bell was installed. In 1884, a communion table was purchased.

The Reverend Hugh Thomas Molesworth (born June 1860, New Brompton, Kent - died 30 June 1930 Brisbane) was appointed curate-in-charge of Holy Trinity in 1886. At that time, Holy Trinity was a church within the Parish of South Brisbane but the congregation was growing. For instance, in 1886, the Holy Trinity Sunday School numbered 143 children and 24 teachers. Molesworth proposed the formation of a Woolloongabba parish, separate from that of South Brisbane. On 19 January 1888, the Holy Trinity Church of England Parish of Woolloongabba was constituted by the Brisbane Church of England Diocesan Council. Reverend David Ruddock (1850 - 1920) was appointed rector. He ministered at the church until 1893 and was replaced by the Reverend Hugh Simmonds.

In November 1889, a new wooden church hall and Sunday school were opened. The hall was designed by the Brisbane architect, John Henry Burley. It measured Vorlage:Convert by Vorlage:Convert. By 1890 a rectory was constructed on the site to the design of diocesan architect, John Hingeston Buckeridge. This was in use until destroyed by fire in 1956.

On 4 November 1895, two men were executed by hanging at Boggo Road Gaol. Reverend Simmonds, Rector of Woolloongabba Parish, in which the gaol stands, attended to one of the men, an Aboriginal man called Jacky. The priest of Holy Trinity Woolloongabba, then Reverend W. P. Oakeley, also attended a condemned Aboriginal man called Billy Broom at Boggo Road Gaol on Monday 11 June 1900.

1900 - 1914

Parish life around the turn of the century was busy; there were services with large congregations (a record 154 communicants on Sunday 12 April 1903), weddings, social gatherings, concerts and activities such as amateur dramatics, debating and cricket and fund raising events. The year 1901 was notable for the services of mourning, featuring black and purple, following the death of Queen Victoria.

In June 1906, a building fund was commenced to raise monies for a new and larger church building to accommodate Holy Trinity Woolloongabba's growing congregation.

In 1910, Edward VII died. The words of the Reverend D. J. Garland at the services of Sunday 8 May 1910 reflected the mood of the congregation. Garland said the King's death had "come with a suddenness which had been so shocking that it was impossible for anyone to speak calmly of the calamity which had befallen the Empire". Many of those present at the services were wearing mourning clothes. The Holy Trinity Womens' Guild along with many other groups, delivered a wreath to the Brisbane mayoress at the town hall. Just one week later, Holy Trinity Woolloongabba celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its dedication.

World War I (1914 - 1918)

In the first months of the Great War little changed at Holy Trinity Woolloongabba: Sunday services, weddings, fetes and fundraising continued. In mid 1915, well after the start of the Gallipoli Campaign on 25 April 1915, St Clair George Alfred Donaldson (Dr Donaldson), first Archbishop of Brisbane, sermonised at Holy Trinity Woolloongabba on the nature of the Christian spirit in war. Soon, priests, including Cecil Edwards, were leaving Brisbane to become military chaplains. Parishes were being asked to release their chaplains to accompany soldiers on troopships on full pay. Proceeds of fundraising went to the war effort and parishes were holding send-offs for men and women who were enlisting.

By September 1918, some men were returning to the parish. The rector, Cecil Edwards returned in January 1920.

In the following year, the global influenza pandemic, known as the Spanish flu reached Brisbane. Holy Trinity Woolloongabba church hall was a meeting place for organisation of care in the emergency.

Fire of 1929

In the 1920s, fund raising for a new church building at Holy Trinity Woolloongabba recommenced with a system of long term subscriptions. A target amount of £ 5,000 was set. However, on the evening of Wednesday 11 December 1929, the church was destroyed by fire. There were no injuries.The source of the fire was not apparent. The claim to the Diocesan Fire Insurance Fund was £ 1,019.

Gerald Sharp, Archbishop of Brisbane, lay the foundation stone of the new church on Sunday 2 May 1930. Building of the new church was completed in September 1930. Bishop Batty dedicated the new church on Saturday 4 October 1930.

Architecture

In about 1916 a subscription scheme was devised to allow parishioners to donate a sum of money over a lengthy period which finally contributed to the construction of a substantial church in 1930. The 1920s was a period of expansion for the Church of England in Queensland and during this time many older churches were rebuilt and new churches constructed. Typically these new buildings were unpretentious, retaining influence from the nineteenth century Gothic Revival but with more awareness of the Queensland sub-tropical climate. In the late 1920s experimentation with derivatives of a hybrid of Romanesque and Spanish Mission architecture are apparent in both the Holy Trinity Church at Woolloongabba and at another Holy Trinity Church in Mackay designed by Lange Powell. Earlier in 1924, Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church at Bowen Hills was constructed using Spanish Mission influences but few other churches display the hybrid style developed by the architect Eric Ford at Woolloongabba.

Priests

• David Ruddock: 1888-1893
• Hugh Simmonds: 1893
• W. P. Oakely: 1901
• Jasper S. Caiger: 1901
• E. C. Ganly: ( - 1925) rector 1904 - 1907
• David John Garland: 1907-1913 Described as "overpoweringly energetic with a distinctive flair, if not genius, for organisation". Played a pivotal role in the Queensland experience of the war, and was a central figure in a variety of committees and organisations established to aid the war effort and support or commemorate serving or returned soldiers.
• Cecil Howard Edwards: 1913 - 1915, 1920-1925
• S. Watkins: 1915 - 1920 (locum tenens)
• E. Morgan Baker: 1915 -
• R. B. Massey: 19 May 1925 -

The architectural firm, Chambers and Ford who designed the Woolloongabba Church of England, was a partnership of Claude William Chambers and Eric Marshall Ford. Chambers and Ford remained in practise in Brisbane from 1920 until 1951, although Chambers was largely not involved and moved permanently to Sydney in about 1935. Chambers was a highly experienced and notable architect, who worked for a number of prominent Brisbane firms during the nineteenth century and formed several partnerships in the twentieth century, including Chambers and Powell (where EM Ford was office manager); Chambers and Ford and Chambers and Hutton. The partnership of Chambers and Ford designed several Brisbane churches notably St Margaret's Church of England, Sandgate (1927) and St James' Church, Kelvin Grove (1943).

Plans, prepared by Ford, for the erection of a new church at Woolloongabba were ready by the end of the 1920s and it is thought that the design was chosen from a limited competition. The parish was saved the expense of the demolition of the earlier church which was blazed to the ground in a fire on 11 December 1929.

The foundation stone was laid on 3 March 1930 by Archbishop Gerald Sharp. A description rendered by the Buildings and Real Estate writer of the Brisbane Courier, talked of the building designed in the Italian Romanesque style of the eleventh century, "slightly modified to suit local conditions". The plan comprised a prominent tower, vestry, entrance porch and nave with side aisles and octagonal chancel. A basement was to provide access for a further two vestries. Finishes throughout the church included face brick internal walls with black tuckpointing, timber panelled ceilings and external roughcast render. A red tiled roof was to provide a contrast with the whitewashed external walls.

Tenders were called by Chambers and Ford for the Holy Trinity Church in the February edition of the Architects and Builder's Journal of Queensland and in the May edition of the journal the tender of JH Davis was accepted. The final cost of the church was about £9800.

The Holy Trinity Church was dedicated on 4 October 1930 by the Coadjutor Bishop of Brisbane, the Right Reverend Francis de Witt Batty. Most of the descriptions of the building on the day of its dedication focussed on its extraordinary site which crowned the highest part of Hawthorne Street and commanded a view of the entire parish. The completed building housed an organ by Messrs Whitehouse costing £560, electric lighting installed by Mr Dudley Winterford, plasterwork by James Bain & Son, glazing by Decorative Art Company and leadlights by Exton & Company. The garden and landscaping was set out by Mr H Stokes. Many of the internal fittings were donated by parishioners and much of the fitted and loose furniture, including the altar furniture and pews was designed by the architect, Eric Ford.

The church has remained as it was constructed with very few apparent alterations. The organ pipes have been painted, carpet runners and squares have been laid, commemorative stained glass windows have been added to the side aisles and work appears to have been undertaken on the reredos screen which is now concealed by a heavy curtain. The exterior of the church has been painted but retains a whitewashed appearance.

Alterations to the site include the 1938 renovation of an sub-basement area in the church for a columbarium, or a place to hold funerary vases and the erection of a freestanding bell tower in 1949 to commemorate those soldiers who were killed during World War II. In 1956 after the original rectory was destroyed the church acquired an adjoining property with an early house from the Sawyer family. This building became the rectory. In 1971 a freestanding crucifix was erected on the southern side of the church commemorating Eric Johnstone. The most substantial changes to the church complex occurred in late 1997 to early 1998 when the church hall and rectory were demolished.

Description

Foundation stone, 2015

The Holy Trinity Church is a substantial, prominently sited building located on the crest of a hill in Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba. The church complex, including the church and adjacent hall, called Trinity Place, has views of the surrounding suburbs: Mater Hill, Kangaroo Point and Woolloongabba.

The church is a brick structure with all external surfaces rendered with a roughcast concrete stucco. The principal roof is clad with terracotta cordova tiles. The design of the building is strongly influenced by the popular Spanish Mission style of the inter-war period manifest both externally and internally in the textured render, barley twist columns, heavy timber joinery and cordova roofing tiles. Combined with this obvious influence is Romanesque detailing including the raked arch motif on the parapets, domed roofs, tower and round arched openings embellished with Norman detailing.

The church has a traditional cruciform floor plan, with shallow transepts, an octagonal chancel at the eastern end and a dominant tower projecting from the north western corner. The body of the church is divided into a nave with a gabled roof abutted on the northern and southern sides by skillion roofed aisles, creating a high level clerestory. The transepts are formed by gabled abutments to the principal roof and the eastern end of the roof is separated from the principal by a secondary gabled parapet from which an octagonal hipped section roofs the chancel.

The corner tower stands about three storeys or 75 feet above ground level and has a square plan through to the second floor level where it tapers inward to form a platform which is surmounted by a circular planned lantern. Surrounding the lantern is an elaborate concrete balustrade featuring large flames at the four corners. Original floodlighting, concealed by the balustrade, illuminates the lantern at night. The lantern comprises a colonnaded exterior which supports a pointed dome roof clad with copper tiles and surmounted by a Latin cross. At the base of the tower, on the northern face is a one storeyed semicircular projection, with a half dome roof clad with painted copper tiles. The principal entrance to the tower is from the western face, through a double timber door, flanked by twisted columns and surrounded by an archway in relief plasterwork featuring moulded panels of two alternating types of crosses. Within the base of the tower is a curved cantilevered concrete stair which winds up inside the tower to give access to the upper levels. The faces of the tower feature double round arched openings separated by twisted columns on the first floor and thin slit windows on the floor above. A repeated arched moulding forms a cornice mould around the top of the second floor of the tower.

The western facade of the church houses two entrances, the principal entrance to the body of the church and the already mentioned entrance to the base of the tower. The principal entrance to the church is via a centrally located double timber door with circular motifs on each of five panels lining the exterior of the door. The door is protected by a small open porch, which has a gabled awning clad with cordova tiles and a vaulted concrete soffit supported on substantial columns with Composite order capitals. On the fascia and surrounding the round archway is a relief moulding featuring square panels of moulded panels featuring crosses. Flanking the entrance are two shallow pilasters which divide the facade into three bays. Within the central bay, above the entrance, is a row of six round arched window openings divided by thin twisted columns and glazed with coloured glass leadlights. Above this is a large wheel window again featuring brightly coloured glazing. The parapeted gable is lined at cornice level with a repeated arch moulding aligned with the taper of the gable. Surmounting the apex of the gable is a cross.

The side aisles of the northern and southern facades of the building are lined with paired round arched openings divided by twisted columns with Composite order capitals and flanked by panels with dog tooth mouldings. These openings define the internal bays of the nave and are glazed with figured stained glass panels. The windows throughout the church are steel casements. Above the height of the side aisles are taller paired round arched openings aligned with the lower windows, but glazed with two tones of green leadlighting. Above the windows is a cornice formed by the repeated arch moulding. The eastern end of the church features a number of single round arched openings glazed with stained glass panels. The repeated arch moulding is used as a cornice moulding on the octagonal chancel and raked on the two parapeted gables. A freestanding copper crucifix, with memorial tablet, is found adjacent to the western end of the southern elevation of the church. Adjacent to the south western corner of the building is a small rustic stone baptismal font which is thought to have a long association with the parish. Also apparent on the southern elevation is the semi-basement under the southern transept.

Internally the body of the church is divided into a nave and side aisles with two heavy face brick arcades, comprising compound columns supporting round arched openings and forming a six bay nave. The compound columns are capped with white painted concrete capitals embellished with mouldings of foliage. The side aisles are further divided by round archways defining each of the bays of the nave and springing from the compound columns of the principal arcades. Also demarcating the internal bays are a number of heavy dark stained timber scissor roof trusses supported on white painted concrete corbels with simple mouldings. The ceiling of the church is lined with stained pine rafters between which are infill panels of timber based board, like an early coarse particle board. The internal walls of the Holy Trinity Church are all dark face brickwork with black pointing. The flooring throughout the interior is concrete which has been scoured to resemble flagging stones and treated with a light buff colour in areas to form patterns. Symbols for alpha and omega, are inscribed in the concrete floor in the steps to the sanctuary area.

The transepts of the church are formed by projections aligned with the two most easterly bays of the nave. Housed in the northern facing chancel is a memorial chapel separated from the church by a face brick balustrade. Featured in this chapel are early stained glass panels commemorating Mr and Mrs Thomas Weedon, long time parishioners of the church. Housed in the chancel on the southern side of the church is a vestry and organ case. The vestry is formed by dark stained timber panelling with feature panels of timber cross bracing. Aligned with the transepts in the nave is a choir area, separated from the body of the church by stepped platforms.

The sanctuary in the chancel is demarcated by two adjacent round chancel arches, defined externally by the two parapeted gable ends and separated from one another by a recessed bay housing round arched openings. Altar rails are aligned with the forward chancel arch. The ceiling of the chancel follows the hipped roof line and is clad with a concrete render. The sanctuary has a number of stepped platforms, and on the uppermost platform is a timber altar. Also in the sanctuary area are two early patterned stained glass panels in round arched openings within the raked walls behind the altar. A large concrete pulpit, to which access is provided by three steps, is found in the choir section of the church and is decorated in the manner of the exterior of the building, painted white and featuring the repeated arch moulding as a cornice.

Generally the interior of the church is quite dark and heavy, as a result of the dark finishes, heavy joinery and small openings, mostly glazed with coloured glass. There is early electrical lighting within the church in the form of pendants in the nave and wall brackets along the walls of the side aisles. The pews and other furniture and fittings including the organ, altar furniture, lectern and altar candles are also early features of the church. An early sandstone baptismal font is elevated on small platforms in the south western corner of the church.

Heritage listing

Holy Trinity Anglican Church was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 May 2008 having satisfied the following criteria.

The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.

Constructed in 1930 as the third Holy Trinity Church of England on the site, the building demonstrates the development of the Woolloongabba area from the nineteenth century when the original church was constructed and also reflects the expansion of the Church of England in Queensland during the 1920s when many parish churches were constructed or upgraded increasing the presence of the church in the state.

The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of inter-war church architecture, with traditional cruciform plan including prominent tower, Romanesque detailing, internal layout and furniture and stained glass panels in traceried surrounds.

The place is important because of its aesthetic significance.

The outstanding landmark qualities of the Holy Trinity Church contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place; it is a well composed and dramatic building on a prominent site. The design of the building is significant as a good intact example of a blend of architectural influences, most apparently inter-war Spanish Mission and ecclesiastical Romanesque. Elements of the building have aesthetic merit as well designed features which complement the design of the place, such features include the artificial lighting both internal and external; internal furniture and fittings, most significantly the pews, choir seating, two altars and altar furniture, lectern, pulpit, organ and font; as well as the early stained glass panels in the memorial chapel, on the western facade and in the sanctuary.

The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

The church has special associations with the Holy Trinity parish and with the Church of England in Queensland as the site of a Church of England for nearly 130 years and as the parish church for sixty eight years.

References

Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based on "The Queensland heritage register" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 7 July 2014, archived on 8 October 2014). The geo-coordinates were originally computed from the "Queensland heritage register boundaries" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 5 September 2014, archived on 15 October 2014).

External links

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