No. 873 - New Town - Pirie Street - The Old Wesleyan Chapel (1859-1866)

-
New Town is a northern suburb of Hobart. It is also one of Hobart’s oldest suburbs and consequently the area contains many historic churches. New Town became a municipality in 1907 but was absorbed into Greater Hobart in the 1920s when its municipal status was relinquished.

In the late 1850s, New Town’s first Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built at a site on Pirie Street. (At the time it was referred as the “Back Road”). The chapel has long disappeared and little information about it survives. It was used for only seven years before it was replaced by the landmark Cross Street Methodist (Uniting) Church in 1866.

Methodist services were held regularly in New Town from the mid 1820s. In 1858 construction of a church began on land purchased from Mr and Mrs Bramwell. The building was officially opened on Sunday 5 June 1859 by Reverend W.A. Quick (of Horton College) and Reverend J. Cope, who preached at a morning and afternoon service.

While local newspapers reported the chapel’s opening, no description of the building was provided. However, when the church was sold in 1873, an advertisement for the auction described the building as standing on a quarter acre and having dimensions of 45ft. by 30ft. and a height of 14ft. 

After the church was vacated in 1866, there were difficulties in selling the property.  For this reason it was used as a venue for public meetings until it was eventually sold in 1873 to Mr F.B. Battle for a sum of £60. In the same year the church was converted into a residence and named "Wesley House".  

The photograph used in this article shows Pirie Street rising to the left of the Maypole Hotel. At the top left corner is a building with Gothic windows matching the chapel described in the 1873 advertisement for its sale. The chapel's location would have been in the general vicinity of Mary Ogilvie House. Wesley House was still standing in the 1920s but I have found no further record of the building after this date.


             Detail from a lantern slide showing New Town c.1873 - The chapel is visible in the top left. This is    
                    indicated more clearly in the photographs below. Source: Libraries Tasmania


                                               The old Wesleyan Chapel highlighted in red.

A detail of the photograph clear shows a chapel matching the dimensions of the building auctioned in 1873.




         A lantern slide of New Town c.1872.  Pirie Street is on the far right of the photograph. Source: TAHO -  
                                                                               Libraries Tasmania 

                                            The Hobart Town Daily Mercury Friday 3 June 1859

                                 
                                                     The Mercury, Monday 16 June 1873

Sources:

The Hobart Town Daily Mercury Friday 3 June 1859, page 3
The Hobart Town Mercury, Tuesday 7 June 1859, page 3
Launceston Examiner, Thursday 9 June 1859, page 2
Launceston Examiner, Saturday 11 June 1859, page 4
The Hobart Town Mercury, Saturday 11 June 1859, page 3
The Tasmanian Times, Tuesday 29 September 1879, page 2
The Mercury, Saturday 12 October 1872, page 1
The Mercury, Monday 16 June 1873, page 4
The Mercury, Monday 13 October 1873, page 1
Mercury, Thursday 26 August 1926, page 3

Stansall, M. E. J & Methodist Church of Australasia (1975). Tasmanian Methodism, 1820-1975 : compiled at the time of last Meeting of Methodism prior to union. Methodist Church of Australasia, Launceston, Tas








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Churches of Tasmania

-
Image
I love history and photography and also have an interest in architecture. When I started this blog in 2017 I had the goal of photographing every historical church in Tasmania. This was initially driven by the proposed mass sell-off of Anglican churches. I was concerned that these buildings would be modified and no longer be accessible once in private hands. As the years have passed this goal has changed to writing short histories of each and every church built in Tasmania, of which there are about 1600.   My earliest posts are rather amateurish but my research and writing has improved somewhat over the years.  In time my hope is to revise and update every article to a publishable standard. I have received an overwhelming amount of material from followers of the blog and I will incorporate this into the articles in the revision phase. Eventually I hope to publish the best of the articles. At present the blog attracts about 1000 views per day and I hope that this will continue to grow. 
Read more

No. 624 - Dunalley - St Martin's Anglican Church - "In grateful memory of the men who fought in the Great War"

-
Image
Dunalley is village on the Arthur Highway approximately 60 kilometres east of Hobart. It stands on the narrow isthmus connected to the Forestier Peninsula. The Denison Canal runs through the village and connects Blackman Bay and Fredrick Henry Bay. Dunalley was badly affected by bushfires in January 2013 with the town losing over 60 buildings including the Police Station and school. St Martin’s is the only public building left standing after the fires. St Martin’s Anglican has recently featured in the news following its sale. It is one of over 50 churches to be sold to meet the Anglican Church’s commitment to the National Redress Scheme. St Martin’s is an unusual church into two respects. Firstly, it is constructed from stone from the former Government stores at the old Coal Mines penal station at Saltwater River, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Secondly, the church was built as a memorial to the men of the district who fought and died in the Great War. As such, the buildin
Read more

No. 592 - Gretna - St Mary the Virgin - "Worthy of Imitation"

-
Image
Gretna is a small township in the Derwent Valley approximately 60 kilometres from Hobart. The area was originally known as Stony Plains Hut and Macquarie Plains. The name Gretna was adopted in the early 20th century. The origin of this name comes from a local farm called ‘Gretna Green’ and also an Inn established in the 1860’s which bore the same name. Another Inn, the Woolpack Inn, was the scene of a gunfight between the bushranger Martin Cash and members of the local constabulary. Gretna’s only church stood a few hundred metres from the inn and Cash and his gang hid in the bush near the church until nightfall prior to raiding the Inn. For many years St Mary’s was known as “The Woolpack Church”. St Mary’s the Virgin was built in 1847 and was opened and consecrated by Bishop Nixon on 1 June 1848. At the service, Edward Terry, the owner of Askrigg estate presented the deed of land on which the church was built to Bishop Nixon. Before the church was erected it is believed that Anglican s
Read more