No. 1591 - Westbury - Holy Trinity Catholic Presbytery (c.1860-1929)

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This article is one of a series about buildings associated with Tasmania’s historical churches. These buildings include Sunday schools, parish halls, convents, schools and residences of the clergy. Ancillary buildings are often overlooked and rarely feature in published histories. My aim is to create a simple record of these buildings, including of those that no longer exist.

Westbury is a historic town situated approximately 30 kilometres west of Launceston. It was surveyed in 1828 and was developed as an administrative centre for the district. The first regular Catholic Mass held at Westbury can be dated to 1847 when the Government permitted Catholics to use the Colonial Hospital ‘for divine service’ for Westbury and the surrounding districts.

In 1850, Bishop Robert Willson asked for a Government land grant at Westbury on which to build a church, a priest's house and school. This was approved on condition that the Catholics built the church as soon as possible. Father Hogan, who was to serve the Catholics of the Westbury district for 49 years, arrived in the town in a fisherman’s cart on May 24, 1850. He lived for a short time in rooms in a hotel owned by Robert Lyall before moving into a cottage on William Street.

In 1855, a small timber church was built at a cost of £300. This was replaced by the present church which was constructed between 1869 and 1874. A presbytery was built in about 1860 and the building was enlarged in the late 1880s. The presbytery was demolished in 1929 and replaced by a new brick building in the same year.

The architect of the original presbytery is not know. The style of the building is attributed to Augustus Pugin and it may have been designed by Henry Hunter who was the architect for the new Holy Trinity church.

By the 1920s the presbytery had fallen into a state of disrepair and it was considered too costly to renovate the building. In February 1929 advertisements calling for tenders for the purchase and removal of the building were placed in local newspapers.

A further article on the new presbytery will published on the blog.

The old Catholic presbytery at Westbury: Source: T. Southerwood - Planting A Faith in Tasmania


The Examiner 



Sources:

The Colonist, Saturday 7 March 1891, page 25
Examiner, Wednesday 30 January 1929, page 1
Examiner, Monday 28 October 1929, page 5

Southerwood, W. T. Planting a faith in Tasmania : the country parishes. [W. T. Southerwood], [Hobart], 1977.


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