No. 1488 - Port Huon - St Andrew's Mission Church (1940)

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Port Huon is a deep-water port on the Huon River, 4 kilometres east of Geeveston on the Huon Highway. Originally known as Shipwrights Point the name was changed in 1965.

Little is known about this relatively short-lived church which was in use for about 10 years. Dorothea Henslowe’s ‘Our Heritage of Anglican Churches in Tasmania’ states that it was “a small wooden church built circa 1940 and sold about 1950 and not replaced”.

The origins of the church can be traced back to 1936. In August 1936 a report in the Huon and Derwent Times states that a block of land “in a favourable position for a church site” had been purchased at Port Huon. At the time of the church’s dedication in December 1940, a report in the Hobart Mercury reveals that the building had previously been used as a Sunday school. It is therefore possible that the building may have been constructed as early as 1937.

The church was officially dedicated by Bishop Dr. R.S. Hay on Sunday 8 December 1940 as “St Andrew’s Mission Church”. Reports of the ceremony provide no description of the building but state that the “font, desk and altar were the work of the Rev. V. Butters”.

The date of the church’s closure and the location of the building is not known. I have yet to come across a photograph of the building.



Sources:

Huon and Derwent Times, Thursday 6 August 1936, page 6
The Mercury, Monday 9 December 1940, page 4
The Mercury, Wednesday 11 December 1940, page 6

Henslowe, Dorothea I and Hurburgh, Isa Our heritage of Anglican churches in Tasmania. Mercury-Walch, Moonah, Tas, 1978.


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