My Year with Bluestone: Mortality Following Me Around

As I parked my bike outside the oncologist's today (routine check: eight and a half years out: all good), I noticed the fabulous high bluestone wall opposite. This is swanky and beautiful East Melbourne and I have a vague recollection of going to dinner in a big house there once years ago when a friend of a friend was staying in what I *think* was a bishop's residence???  Too vague, sorry. I was determined to photograph the wall when I came out this morning but hadn't reckoned on the always-slightly-discombobulating experience of re-entering the cancer world....

I remembered about the wall only when I came to another bluestone site: St Peter's Eastern Hill Anglican church. It's quite old, dating from the mid 1840s, so pre-gold rush.




You can see the spire of St Patrick's behind the church here.

It's hard to get a good photo of the church, which is positioned awkwardly on the corner block, and which has another section added on anyway.


I specially like this photo of the red door.

And I am coming to love the various textures chipped into stone: 


But of course, you know, mortality follows us around like anything. I had sped away from the garden wall opposite my oncologist's, only to pause by a church where I attended a funeral of a dear friend, Chasely, who died of cancer nearly twenty years ago. Chasely attended our wedding, and Joel was a wee babe in arms when she died, on New Year's Day or New Year's Eve. I'm thinking of her, and Greg and Emily today.

My Year with Bluestone: Discreet building on hipster Brunswick St

Brunswick St Fitzroy is now a very hipster place; full of gorgeous little bars, pubs, restaurants, boutiques, specialist shops, perfumeries, bike shops, etc. etc. There are also heaps of bluestone buildings here as Fitzroy, just north-east of the main city blocks, was Melbourne's first suburb. There are lots of great resources, published and on-line, about its buildings. And I'm the first to acknowledge I've not done my basic research here on this building (with others of the buildings I've looked at, there's more available online), but it's a very striking one, on the north-east corner of King William and Brunswick. There's a faded photograph on the State Library website, but no further information about it. Here's the corner view:

It has the appearance of a warehouse, rather than a shop, given the size of the front windows. Or perhaps it was a rooming house of some kind? Here is the view from King William St:

 And a closeup. I believe this building is now the parish office of All Saints Church:

Here's the church itself, further down King William St. There's rather more written about this church and I'll revisit another day:

 And here's a view from the back of the building on Brunswick St: observe the contrast between the ornate street frontage where the 'quarry cut' is actually rougher (i.e. more fancy) than the smoother, less visible back wall.

And a handsome doorway and two fine lions...

The building is surprisingly anonymous as you walk down the street. It doesn't scream "style", as so many other buildings on the street do; nor does it invite you in for a micro-brew. It's turned, institutionally, to the church on the side road, a little historical pocket in this bustling street. More to come another time. I've had a quick look here at the Fitzroy History Society, but need to look at Tony Birch's history of Fitzroy, too.

My Year with Bluestone: Sad Monday

Oh dear. Woke to the news that St James Catholic church in Brighton has been destroyed by a huge fire, so large it was visible from the West Gate Bridge. The church was build in 1891. 

How does stone burn? All its beautiful wooden interiors....

The Victorian Heritage site says the nave was built in 1891 to the design of architect Edgar J Henderson; the transepts and chancel in 1924, designed by Schreiber and Jorgensen.

 

ABC reporter on radio now says the "beautiful old church" still looks to be standing, but the roof has collapsed and there are sounds of large crashes. It's a huge fire, with many trucks and cranes. Awful.

Update: Apparently this church was the site of lots of complaints about sexual abuse of children. As Jon Faine said on 774 radio this morning, 'it's a church that has given much pain'.  Apparently some folk are glad the church has gone...  Sadder and sadder.

2nd Update: And here is Rachel Griffiths on why so many people feel "elated" the church has gone: the priest turned her mother away after her father left them, and so she feels her brothers were saved the predations of the priests. The community dispersed after the abuses became known.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/haunted-house-on-hill-rachel-griffiths-describes-church-abuse/6357960

And here's an astonishing photo from The Age reader Garry Furlong: weird effect of yellow flames lighting up windows designed to bring light inside.

My Year with Bluestone: Three Churches

Last week,  we went to my parents' new church. They moved from Grovedale to Northcote a year ago, and soon found a ready welcome at this church. It is a composite. There was originally a bluestone church, but when this became too small, a brick one was built next door, without knocking over the bluestone one. Then, as these things happen, the congregation diminished, while another church half a suburb away was growing in numbers, but without having a suitable building. So one Palm Sunday in  2005, the congregation from the smaller building literally walked together into this brick church and the two congregations merged. It's a very active community.

We went to a special service to celebrate the 60th year of my father's ordination as a minister. The service was one of thanksgiving and celebration. People spoke briefly and well. My father spoke a little about leaving school very young to go and work on the farm with his father and brothers, but then being accepted into ministry training, and then going back to finish high school at evening college, and then going to university. But mostly he spoke about my mother (who is facing some long term health difficulties now). Here he is, more or less I think at the age he and my mother met, when she was doing her deaconess training.

And here he is, making his lovely acceptance speech. 

It was followed by what can only be described as a magnificent afternoon tea. To describe all the food would be impossible, but every delicious thing you would expect at a church tea was there. I was particularly impressed by real hot tea and plunger coffee, and then the way the committee members would subtly rationalise the groaning tables as people emptied the plates and started to leave. So first there were two large rectangular tables, and then there was one in the middle of the room, and then there was but a square table; and all the plates were magically kept looking full and fresh. This is just the very last little tableful...

So I have veered a little from bluestone. But what struck me so deeply, on this important day for him, was my father being so attentive to my mother, and remembering my bluestone project, and reminding me to get out and take photographs.

My Year with Bluestone: "cheap" but "utilitarian"

I am researching on a number of very different topics this month, but the thrill of finding what you are looking for in the archive NEVER diminishes.

When looking for material on St Luke's Anglican church (now the Hungarian reformed church in Fitzroy), I came across an Architecture thesis by Deborah C. McColl from 1967, deposited in the University of Melbourne's library: a history of St Luke's and St Mark's Anglican churches, both in Fitzroy. I'll blog about St Mark's another day: I've been to several music concerts there...

The thesis is fantastic: an immensely detailed account of the social and physical history of both churches. It's scanned from a typescript that's been corrected by hand; the page numbers and captions to the many illustrations are hand written too.

The text isn't searchable, so it took me a while just now to find the right sections, and here they are. Curiously incomplete, but this section suggests that bluestone was not always perceived as the most appropriate stone for all kinds of grand buildings. "Though [previously] bluestone had [generally] been considered as a utilitarian material [in Melbourne] not suitable for a House of God, St. Mark's was not the first bluestone church in Melbourne."   And from the second  page here, a note about St Enoch's in Collins St, "also a bluestone Blackburn design". "Due to criticism against the bluestone, portion of its facade was stuccoed."

I can't find much yet about St Enoch's (it's after midday and I *have* to get back to my other essay, though here is a blog about colonial stained glass that feature St Enoch's), and here is a link to a sketch from 1864: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab38503/1/b28381,
but I did find this note about St Stephen's in Richmond from the Heritage Victoria website:

St Stephen's Anglican Church is of architectural significance as one of Melbourne’s earliest bluestone churches. St Stephen’s is remarkable as a very early example of the use of bluestone, which was until this time not considered acceptable for face work – virtually at the same time as St Stephens was being built, the bluestone facade of St Enoch’s United Presbyterian Church in Collins Street Melbourne was being stuccoed to make it more acceptable to the parishioners. The colour of the stone was initially not favoured by local tastes, but with the disappointing weathering properties of local sandstone, bluestone was beginning to be used on important buildings from around 1850. The highly durable but comparatively cheap bluestone also began to win favour at the time of the gold rushes when building costs were escalating rapidly. 

I suspect this is one of those things that will become a given in my work. I knew there was a debate about Victorian versus New South Wales sandstone, but I hadn't understood about the cultural associations of bluestone. "Cheap", but "utilitarian" and therefore not always the first choice for a church. I also predict this will be one of those things I come to read about in many different contexts, but for the record, this is the first day this has become a "thing" for me, and a really useful point of orientation. 

Archival work is a huge time-suck, and the world of architectural history is just opening up to me. Lots more to do!

My Year with Bluestone: Hungarians and heritage

The spire of this church is a familiar landmark around these parts. It's new and shiny, and visible from the city as you walk towards Fitzroy. It's also positioned where Brunswick St and St Georges Rd meet, and opposite the Edinburgh gardens, so it's a great landmark.



The church was originally St Luke's Anglican, built in 1879 - 91 and designed by architects Crouch and Wilson, whose work I feel sure we will meet again.

A document on the Victorian Heritage Database remarks: "constructed of bluestone with cream brickwork and pressed cement mouldings." But a less neutral document on the same site quotes The Australasian Sketcher of April 12, 1879, who writes: "The material used in the building is bluestone, relieved with white pressed bricks and pressed cement."

I have a hunch there will be more of this kind of language, too: the heaviness of the bluestone is lightened, or "relieved" with the bricks and pressed, curved cement.

The National Estate Register is somewhat dismissive of the interior: "The exterior is intact however the interior has been painted and remodelled inappropriately." This may have something to do with the fact that it's no longer an Anglican church but a "reformed Hungarian" church. Most commentators make the point that this reflects the changing ethnic demographic of Fitzroy.

It does seem to me that bluestone struggles a bit with the gothic style here. At first glance the shapes of these arches and roundels are lovely, but there is something about the relentless blockiness of the rectangular bluestones that somewhat inhibits any possibility of soaring:

But what on earth is this totem pole doing in the front? 

The Church's website doesn't explain, though naturally it's in Hungarian and Chrome's translation may have missed a few things. 

Because I am using this blog in part as a place holder, I'm not delving deeply into every scholarly archive for each day's entry, while I work out how I will organise and write my book, but I have been struck, last night and this morning, about how little information there is online about the Hungarian church. Not even a date has leapt up at me, though I've read several times about the church being "sold" by the Anglicans to the Hungarians. It's a reminder lesson, perhaps, about how anglo/English- centred the internet is.* 

Look at this lovely image that heads up the Hungarian Church's website, though: 

Here, with the roundels featured, and without the tallest spire, the church looks less "early English", and rather more European in style, I think.

*  Just zoomed in on my photograph above. The second marble foundation stone gives the date 1949.