(ANGLICAN)
KOOYONG ROAD, SOUTH CAULFIELD
Closed after a valiant attempt to keep it going.
This unassuming brick church on its grassy knoll above a street corner has finally succumbed to closure after years of hanging on by a thread. It has been shut down for the usual reason – not enough attenders – even though the Anglican diocesan authorities were only a few years ago said to be “determined to keep it going.”
It has not gone without some radical attempts to do that, culminating in various ventures in the direction of Anglican-Pentecostalist non-liturgy for the “post-churched” and other non-churchgoers. There were two services on Sunday morning, with, as an observer put it, the second intended to “look different and sound different”, an aspiration expressed “on the minister’s T-shirt with the slogan ‘Get used to different’” (surplices seem to be a thing of the past in Anglican Evangelical churches). The parish went “on a journey to curate a worship space that is inclusive; that caters for diversity; and connects into a network of artists and actors who call St Cath’s their spiritual home.” There were art supplies available in the church, and “coffee corners for those who prefer an auditory conversation”.
Despite all this the stay-at-homes stayed at home. The congregation shrank to about fifteen on a Sunday and the parish has now been declared unviable. A deconsecration service was held in September.
There have been quite a few such closures in the Anglican diocese of Melbourne – at Armadale, Bentleigh, Coburg East, Darebin, Deepdene, East Preston, Kingsville, Malvern, Mont Albert, North Brighton, Thornbury and elsewhere – and a glance at a typical Sunday morning in most parishes suggests there will soon be more. The era of the suburban church is passing. Even so, the diocese reports that $69 million was raised from the sale of properties between 1998 and 2020, most of which went into churches in new areas and other forms of “mission “.
St Catherine’s was built in 1921 at a time when suburban churches were flourishing. It replaced at least two earlier and smaller churches on other sites and was considered important enough for the Governor of Victoria, the Earl of Stradbroke, to lay the foundation stone.
The architect was Daniel Dossetor (see addendum), and the building has similarities, particularly in the crenellated turret between the porch and south transept, to Christ Church, Essendon, designed by him and built about the same time as St Catherine’s. The turret stands in for a bell tower.
The church is built of red brick with cement dressings. It is unusual among Anglican churches in Melbourne in having a rather Methodist look. But the cruciform plan is conventional Anglican, with nave, short transepts and chancel with vestry and organ chamber. Inside, the walls are plastered and plain and there is a timber barrel roof. There were choir stalls in the chancel, but these have been removed in a general rearrangement of furniture for less formal, “different”, worship.
There is little external ornament, although the windows, of Gothic inspiration but shallower than traditional Gothic, are well proportioned in relation to the walls in which they are set and give a certain sense of noble simplicity.
There is an especially ugly parish hall reminiscent of a small factory on the Kooyong Road frontage. The whole block will probably sell quite well for redevelopment, though demolition of the church (but not the hall) would be a pity as it is about the only building with any character anywhere nearby.
PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THIS POST BY ANTHONY BAILEY
UPDATE 6.11.2024: John Richard Maidment writes: Daniel Dossetor was surely the architect. The Revd C.R. Schwieger had previously been at Christ Church, Essendon where a cheaper church was built to Dossetor’s designs after North & Williams’s earlier design was rejected probably on the score of cost. He moved to Caulfield. The only other church design by Dossetor that I know of was the second Australian Church, in Russell Street, which had an industrial appearance at least externally – maybe he also designed the hall at St Catharine’s built after 1939. North & Williams did the vicarage at St Catherine’s dating from 1916, so before the current church was envisaged.
Dossetor was based in Essendon as I recall and did a homestead north of Tullamarine airport.
UPDATE 18.11.2024: St Catherine’s is closed and was deconsecrated in September. It appears still to be in use as a “memorial venue”, i.e. undertaker’s chapel. This is as good a result as could be hoped in the circumstances. At least it means the building will not be radically altered or demolished, for now.
HERE TODAY... 