St John's Church, Mundoolun, Anglican church in Mundoolun, Australia
St John's Church is a sandstone chapel in Early English Gothic style, designed by John Buckeridge and built 1901–1915 on a ridge of the Birnam Range. It has a combined nave and chancel, a southeast sanctuary, a southern vestry, a northern porch, an organ chamber with gallery, and a western bell tower with a baptistry at its base. The walls are random ashlar with a rubble core, and the steep roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron.
St John's Church was built from 1901 to 1915 as a private family chapel, a memorial to John and Anne Collins raised by their five children after John's death in 1898. The Collins had come from Ireland in 1839 and taken up Mundoolun station in 1844. Architect John Buckeridge was commissioned in 1899; work began on 22 June 1900 and the church was dedicated on 27 December 1901, consecrated in 1905, with the tower added in 1915 as a memorial to Robert Martin Collins.
The church was dedicated on St John the Evangelist Day, 27 December 1901, by Archdeacon Arthur Evan David, but consecration followed only on 29 August 1905 under the Bishop of Brisbane. The Collins family commissioned it as a memorial to John and Anne Collins, who had arrived from Ireland in 1839. Today the chapel is used for weddings and other public events.
The building sits on elevated ground and is visible from the surrounding roads, making it easy to locate. Visitors should know that the site remains an active parish church with limited visiting times outside of services.
The tower footings were laid in 1900 with the chapel, but the tower itself was only added in 1915 as a memorial to Robert Martin Collins, who died in 1913. Bells were never installed in it. The sandstone was quarried further along the same spur and hauled to the masons' shed by dray.
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