No. 726 - Wynyard Gospel Hall (1910 - 2019)

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Wynyard is a town on the North West coast approximately 20 kilometres west of the city of Burnie. The area around Wynyard was originally named Table Cape by the explorers Bass and Flinders. The name was changed to Wynyard in the 1850s, in honour of Edward Buckley Wynyard, Lieutenant-General of the New South Wales Corps. In his capacity as commander of troops in New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, Wynyard visited Table Cape in 1850-1.

Wynyard’s Bible Chapel, previously known as the Wynyard Gospel Hall, opened in early 1910. It replaced an earlier Christian Brethren church established in the 1870’s. The earlier building had previously been a small wooden Anglican church built in the old cemetery grounds (located on Jackson Street) which opened in 1854 or 1855. The building was acquired by the Brethren following the construction of St Stephen’s Anglican church in 1873. The old church was removed to a site at the intersection of Jackson Street and Quiggin Street. The hall was described as “a plain and unpretending place of worship” by a visitor to the township in 1880.

Coverage of the activities of the Christian Brethren at Wynyard was poorly covered by the local press. Thus, when the old Gospel Hall on Jackson Street was replaced by a new Hall on Hogg Street in 1910, there is no report of the building’s opening. In February 1910 a single line in a report in the North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times noted that “the new Gospel Hall is just about complete”.

The Hogg Street Gospel Hall was altered in 1960 when a brick hall was built alongside the original wooden church. In more recent times the Gospel Hall was renamed the Wynyard Bible Chapel. Following the church’s closure the building was sold in 2019.  It is now the Wynyard Community Church, a part of CRC Churches International.

Additional information about this church is welcomed as all articles will be updated. I can be contacted through this page or my Facebook page "Churches of Tasmania" which is linked here: <Churches of Tasmania>

The 1910 Gospel Hall is still mostly intact following the addition of a brick veneer on the Western end of the building in 1960. (my photograph)

The 1960 extension to the Gospel Hall. 

AdThe interior of the 1910 Chapel - Photo Elders Real Estate

The Interior of the1960 Hall - Photo - Elders Real Estate


Sources:

Launceston Examiner, Saturday 31 January 1880, page 1
Launceston Examiner, Saturday 8 November 1890, page 3
North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, Tuesday 7 June 1904, page 4
North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, Tuesday 25 January 1910, page 2
Advocate, Saturday 10 October 1931, page 4




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