Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church, Catholic war memorial church in Bowen Hills, Australia.
Our Lady of Victories Church is a Roman Catholic war memorial church at 29 Cintra Road, Bowen Hills, built in 1924–25 to a design by Hall & Prentice. Its Spanish Mission exterior shows baroque parapeted gables, groups of round-headed arched openings, textured stucco render and several semi-octagonal projections; the interior is less stylistically pronounced.
The foundation stone was placed in 1919 by Bishop Bartolomeo Cattaneo, with the building consecrated in 1925 by Archbishop James Duhig. It was built as a war memorial for local Catholic communities.
The church was the first built for the new Bowen Hills parish after James Duhig became archbishop in 1917, part of a boom that saw over 100 Catholic churches rise in the Brisbane Archdiocese between 1912 and 1928. A local Catholic newspaper, The Age, called its mission-style architecture the first of its kind in Australia.
The church stands at 29 Cintra Road, Bowen Hills, in inner Brisbane; the site is a short walk from Bowen Hills railway station. The 1925 church is set back beside the presbytery land Archbishop Duhig bought from the Perry estate in 1920. Look for the baroque parapeted gables and round-headed arched openings from the street.
The coloured glass panels carry the First Australian Imperial Force's rising sun badge, and an honour roll once stood at the base of the tower, later removed. A large electrically illuminated cross on the tower was described at the 1925 opening as a perpetual light for Queensland's Catholic soldiers and sailors of World War I.
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